EARLY MEDIEVAL HOOKED TAG

800

Description: Silver hooked tag with circular panel decorated with a Trewhiddle-style animal. The hooked tag has a basically circular plate with rounded projections set rather low at the upper corners, each perforated with a circular sewing hole. The hook at the bottom is small and missing its tip, with a fairly worn break. It has a little flat rounded lobe to either side where the hook meets the plate.The circular panel is set inside an undecorated frame, and the decoration has been engraved. Some niello survives; where it has been lost there is a lot of soil adhering, but in a few places a keyed base to the engraving can be seen.The panel contains a single Trewhiddle-style animal in relief, which is hard to interpret. It seems that there is a very small head, with dot eye and wide-open jaws biting at a pellet. The animal has a long neck and rounded breast; on the back is a large tapering upwards-pointing wing which has three longitudinal grooves decorating it and ends in a rounded lobe curling towards the head. A foreleg emerges from the body and runs down to end in a hoof-like foot with a nick above it; there is also a wide nick into the body behind the leg. The body then tapers into a narrow tail which interlaces around, under itself and up to fill the space behind the wing.The rest of the ornament is even less clear, some being obscured by surviving niello and corrosion. There is a possible detached second leg and interlace under the body, although if the animal depicted is in fact a bird it may never have had a second leg. In front of the head is a long thin tendril and a pellet, and an area obscured by corrosion, perhaps from the niello.The reverse of the hooked tag is undecorated and the object is now a little bent.Dimensions: length 25.6mm, width 17.4mm, thickness 1.1mm. Weight 1.56g.Discussion: The combination of the Trewhiddle style with a bird enmeshed in interlace can also be found on one of the pairs of brooches found at Pentney, Norfolk (Webster and Backhouse 1991, no. 187a), thought to date to the first third of the ninth century. Other birds, perhaps peacocks, can be found on the 'Æthelwulf' finger-ring, which on historical grounds can be dated to 828-858 (Webster and Backhouse 1991, no. 243).Date: 9th century AD.