MEDIEVAL BOX

1180

Gilded copper-alloy strip, perhaps a box mount. The strip is broken at one end (old break) and has an expanded terminal at the other. For nearly half its length the strip is 11 mm wide and is decorated either side of an off-centre flat-topped ridge. On the wider side of the ridge are about seven rows of tiny triangular punch-marks, made by the pointed corner of a tool in a chip-carving technique; along the edge is a border of rocker-arm engraving. On the other side the decoration is much more worn; there are perhaps four rows of punchmarks and there is probably a similar rocker-arm border. Just over half of the strip is taken up by the terminal. John Cherry has seen this and describes it as a possible debased flower ornament. The ridge continues and divides into two to form a Y shape. In either angle of the Y is an outward-facing scroll, separated from the ridge by a line of engraving made by rocking a tool to and fro; the tool appears to be the same one as was used to make the punchmarks. The end of the scrolls projects beyond the line of the strip to take the mount to its maximum width of 16 mm. Each scroll has some short engraved lines as decoration, but these are differently arranged on either scroll and it is hard to know what they were intended to represent. One scroll (on the side with the narrower zone of punched decoration) is longer than the other and pushes that arm of the Y lower down the object. Each end of the Y's arms projects a little beyond the edge. In the angle between the arms is a large off-centre copper-alloy rivet with integral rove; the rivet is 5.5 mm long. Below the Y are two long parallel oval lobes, each decorated with short oblique engraved lines. The ovals are outlined in the middle with engraved lines, and the space in between is decorated with worn rocker-arm. The strip ends with three rounded lobes set transversely. All of the strip's original edges are gently bevelled, and the undecorated reverse is slightly curved across its short axis, although as the whole object is slightly crumpled this is hard to tell. Box mounts are known from 12th-century contexts (e.g. at Castle Acre, Norfolk) but this one is much larger and more showy than those. John Cherry has commented that it shows Romanesque influences and dates it to possibly the late 12th century but more probably the first half of the 13th.