The Portable Antiquities Scheme

Cite record | Embed record | Print | | Report

A complete Early-Medieval copper-alloy stirrup-strap mount (11th or early 12th century). The mount belongs to Williams's Class A, Type 13 (Williams 1997). It is lozenge-shaped and has a rectangular cross-section. From the uppermost point of the plate projects a smaller lozenge that has been pierced with a central circular rivet hole. This would have served to attach the mount to a leather strap. In line with the central horizontal axis of the plate, a further small lozenge projects out from each side of the mount and each has a decorative raised knop in the centre. In the very centre of the plate in line with these small projections is a larger, very squared, recessed lozenge. Beneath this is a large area of ferrous concretion, where an iron rivet remains in situ. This has been pierced through a central attachment hole and is visible also on the reverse of the mount. On either side of the rivet, the stirrup-strap mount widens into a flat lobe, before the edge straightens again for a short distance. The straight sides indicate the point at which the mount projects back towards the reverse into a short solid tab oriented at ninety degrees to the rest of the mount. The reverse of the mount is undecorated; it has a pale grey-green patina. The front surface of the mount has a similar green patina, but a fair amount of the surface is a buff red-brown colour. Type 13 stirrup-strap mounts are not particularly common; only eight are illustrated by Williams (1997, fig. 48). Williams notes that the artefact type is almost impossible to date thanks to most of the known examples being detector finds; only two published stirrup-strap mounts are from dated contexts (1995, 2). From art-historical evidence on other types of stirrup-strap mount they are thought to date broadly to the 11th century, and perhaps as late as the early 12th.

Dimensions: length: 42.22mm; width: 32.38mm; thickness: 2.50mm; weight: 13.52g.

Reference: Williams, D. 1995. Stirrup Mounts, Datasheet 20. In: Datasheets 1-24. A consolidated reprint of Datasheets issued by the Finds Research Group between 1985 and 1998.

Williams, D. 1997. Late Saxon Stirrup-Strap Mounts (CBA Res Rep 111).

• Williams, D., 1997. Late Saxon stirrup-strap mounts: a classification and catalogue York : CBA Research Report 111, ppp. 2.

QR barcode

If you have a mobile phone equipped with QR recognition software, you can go directly to the webpage that this record resides at. Every record has an individual one of these.

Comment on this artefact's record

Audit data

Created: Tuesday 19th January 2010
Updated: Friday 15th April 2011