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Description: | A copper-alloy end-cap from a knife of late Medieval to early Post-Medieval date. The end-cap can broadly be described as rectangular in plan and cross-section but tapers in plan towards the knife blade (now missing) and tapers towards the lower edge in cross-section. The end-cap has a length of 27.16mm. The open end, nearest to the knife blade (now missing), has a height of 10.45mm, the top width measures 6.30mm and this narrows to 5.12mm across the lower edge. The terminal end has a height of 14.02mm, an upper width of 8.60mm and lower edge width of 6.58mm. The end-cap has a transverse terminal plate. Weight is 4.27g. All five external surfaces have incised line decoration some of which are iconographic.All of the external surfaces of this knife end cap have incised line decoration. The terminal end depicts a human head facing but turned to face over a left shoulder indicating that the rest of the figure, not shown, is standing facing left. The head occupies the wider end of this plate with the shoulder located in the narrower end. Some copper-corrosion is present on this surface which reduces the clarity of this decoration. The wider two long sides of the end cap have an incised border set c.1.75mm in from the edge. Inside the border each of these sides has an incised standing human figure, holding a staff, depicted. Both of these figures wear headdress, as seems to be the case on the terminal end, and is stood forward facing. Small patches of a light bright green copper-alloy corrosion product, similar to that on the terminal end, are present on both of these surfaces and result in reducing the clarity of this decoration. The two thinnest long sides of the end cap also have incised borders placed just off centre c.1.35mm in from the edges. The only incised decoration within these borders is a series of short transversely set lines that stop short of the border. The wider of these two sides has what seems to be a single line set c.1.85mm below the incised border line. The second transverse line appears 4.19mm below the first, and the third follows 5.10mm below that. The fourth line is 5.35mm below the third and followed almost immediately, c.0.25mm, later by a fifth line. The lower line of the border is c.3.30mm below the fifth transverse decorative line. It is unclear whether the double set lines (line four and five) were intentionally set as double line decoration or accidentally placed this closely. The decorative transverse lines on the slightly thinner surface of the end cap are much fainter. It seems probable that there is a double set of transverse lines at the top of the row (line one and two, those closest to the terminal end) similar to those in position four and five on the opposite side of the artefact. Both of these surfaces have small patches of the corrosion product seen on all other surfaces of this artefact. The lower border line on all four sides is the least visible of all of the border edges, due to faintness and presence of corrosion product. It is therefore possible that there is no lower border on all sides and that what has been seen and interpreted as the lower border line are fortuitous marks in locations where a lower border line would be expected.See PAS record LON-E21323.
Original Image | Publisher: | http://finds.org.uk | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Identifier: | http://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/r... | Go to resource |
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