Sussex

A rather lovely swivel

As promised in the initial post, a rather lovely swivel.

Slightly cheating this as I recorded it a few weeks back, but I’m returning it to the finder this week so have been reviewing it. It is related in form and date to the rather more common double loop swivels with zoomorphic terminals where the animal heads at the ends of the loop bite the central swivelling piece. Like this one:

The more common type of double loop swivel SUSS-225F31

The one at the top has a more elaborate swivelling mechanism, one larger loop and one terminal which reminds me personally of the figure of eight spur terminals and may have has a similar function with two small straps attached by hooked strap ends (of which more in a few weeks). On a passing note the swivel also reminded me of SUSS-53ED36 which presumably once also swivelled before corrosion fixed them both.

There are a few parallels for this form including one excavated in London  and misidentified initially as a tap as it lacked the figure of eight terminal, and a elaborate example to end all elaborate examples from Winchester. More details and links to the parallels (as for all the finds featured here) can be seen on the record:SUSS-225F31 so no point repeating them.

I have to confess to some personal qualms about the identification of all these swivels as animal leash pieces, not least because there is a Late Medieval carved panel in the V and A from Germany showing one being used to suspend a purse. It is definitely a topic ripe for more research if anyone fancies taking on the challenge. In the meantime I hope you enjoyed seeing it.