EARLY MEDIEVAL STRAP END

900

Round-ended strapend of tenth-century, Anglo-Viking type. The closely-woven interlace, crowded into the field around a central column of successive cones representing a plant-stem, shows a provincial response to the more delicately-arranged acanthus foliage of Wessex during the tenth century. The cone and interlace resolution occurs elsewhere, for instance in sculpture at Littleton Drew (Glos) on a cross shaft in the church porch there. The cramped ornament on this strapend bears some relation in layout to the tenth-century 'ring'knot' ornament found in Manx and other Anglo-Norse contexts in sculpture, though the foliate form is a separate motif. See also find SF-BF1341 for another strapend of related date from the same findspot.