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Description: | An incomplete early-medieval silver hooked tag, now in two pieces. It has a circular plate, most of the upper half of which is missing (old break) so no attachment holes or lugs remain.The plate has a separate silver dome-headed rivet 5.1mm in diameter set in a rivet hole in the centre of the plate. The rest of the plate has engraved decoration, probably originally in three fields or panels; a vertical ladder-pattern strip, flanked by thin undecorated strips, runs from the central rivet down to the hook, and a tiny stub of one similar oblique strip can be seen running from the rivet to the breaks in the upper half. These strips would have formed a Y-shaped pattern dividing the decoration into three. The uppermost field is now entirely missing, but the two lower fields have identical Trewhiddle-style foliate decoration of a central triangular leaf with central groove, flanked by a pair of curved leaves with deep nicks in their concave outer edges and ending in rounded lobes. Each field has an inner undecorated border meeting the radiating undecorated strips, and the entire plate has an outer undecorated border. There is no evidence of any niello surviving in the engraving.There are two transverse grooves at the junction of the plate and hook. The complete hook is undecorated and extends for 7.4mm before turning backwards; it is 2.8mm wide and 1.6mm thick. The hooked tag has a surviving length of 20.8mm, it is 19.1mm wide, 0.8mm thick amd weighs 1.16g.Hooked tags were in use from the second half of the 7th to the 11th centuries. They were probably all-purpose fastenings used to secure clothing, purses, etc. The division of this one into three panels, plus the nicks in the foliage ornament, are characteristic of the Trewhiddle style, which was in use broadly during the 9th century AD. This date is also supported by the use of a separate rivet.Parallels in silver include Read (2008) nos. 144 and 146; Webster and Backhouse (eds) 1991, nos. 196-197; and Graham-Campbell 1982. Parallels on the PAS database are fewer, but include the silver example KENT-E9F568 (2012T748) and the copper-alloy example NMS-DF4534.
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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