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Description: | An unidentified cast copper-alloy object, a 'moustache' mount, so named because of its shape being reminiscent of a moustache. The object is cast in one piece and has a swollen body which tapers towards the pointed terminals. The centre of the body is narrowed and has a uniform vertical groove running around its girth to the underside or base of the object. At this point the grooves ends and abutts a circular recess, approximately 7.3 mm in diameter. All sides of the object are decorated with alternating ridges and grooves arranged horizontally. The narrowed terminals are without the ribbed decoration and corrosion has effected the very ends. With an undecorated end, some of these objects are reminiscent of hedgehogs.A number of objects of this type have now been recovered and several are recorded on the PAS database, however this is the largest example so far recorded. A similar object was found in the Salisbury Hoard (Stead, 1998, no.117) and as such they are thought to date from the middle Bronze Age to the late Iron Age. Dr JD Hill at the British Museum suggests that they are Iron Age rather than Bronze Age, but this is yet to be confirmed by excavation of a stratified example. Their function is uncertain, although a circular recess at the bottom of this example (and in many of the others known) suggests that they were mounted on or below something. A mount for a sword or dagger handle is the most obvious function but the absence of evidence makes this conjectural.
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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