EARLY MEDIEVAL HOOKED TAG

800

Description: An Early-Medieval hooked tag with a circular plate and two protruding pierced lobes for attachment, one of which is now broken. The edge of the plate is decorated with a border of pellets made from a groove within multiple transverse lines; the effect is of a ladder pattern or rope pattern. This border is interrupted by the attachment lobes, which are not decorated.Inside the border, the plate is decorated with a Trewhiddle-style beast reserved in silver against an engraved background. The engraving is deep and may originally have contained niello, although no evidence for this is visible when viewed under a microscope. The animal is shown in profile to the right; the head of the beast looks back to the left over its body. A strand emerges from the open mouth which may be a tongue. The head has a dot eye in a rounded brow, and a short blunt nose. There is a double nick to the back of the head, behind which a lappet extends with a slight upward curve, bending around the incomplete attachment hole. The neck has double nicks to upper and lower edges, and the front of the chest has another pair of nicks. Long curling elements fill the lower part of the plate; two end in pointed tips and are probably forelegs, but the third is folded into three lengths, interlaces with one of the forelegs, and may be a tail.A narrow rearward hook extends from the base. The hook is incomplete, and the break is worn. At the top of the hook is a slightly expanded area which is bordered with more ladder pattern, and has some rectilinear geometric decoration within it. The reverse is undecorated.Dimensions: Length 16 mm, width 11 mm, thickness 1 mm, weight 0.84 g.Discussion: There are several silver hooked tags decorated with a single profile animal recorded on the PAS database, including one with a remarkably similar animal motif, BH-340AB6 (from Adstone, Northants). Less close parallels with slightly differently treated single animals include BH-EC6878, LVPL-A65F43 and HESH-24A9D4.Date: The use of the Trewhiddle style dates the object broadly to the 9th century.