The Portable Antiquities Scheme

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Eighth-century Irish vessel mount. The copper-alloy mount is dominated by a grim human face with large oval eyes, above panels of enamel. It was originally symmetrical, with a matching face in mirror image at the bottom. It would have been made as one of a set of three rim-mounts for a bowl of thin copper-alloy sheet. these mounts were recessed behind to hold rings from which the bowl could be hung. The Arnside mount has three holes drilled through it, including a large one through the mouth, showing that the mount has been mechanical re-attached or re-used.

The stylised staring face and the lavish use of enamel are features characteristic of eighth-century Irish decorative metalwork. Similar anthropomorphic mounts have also been found on Irish bowls and buckets in Norway. As well as vessels, Irish mounts and fittings travelled with the Vikings as loot or traded goods, or possibly as gifts and dowry pieces. While often of no value as bullion, they were appreciated for their decoration, bright gilding and coloured enamel. Many, as here, show signs of re-use.

On other Irish bowl mount with a face at each end, but without enamel, was found in England some years ago, reportedly near York, formerly the capital of a Scandinavian kingdom. It is now in a private collection. It is more usual in Britian and around the Irish Sea to find small pieces cut from Irish enamels, and decorative metalwork for use as decoration on the lead weights which are relatively common finds from the ninth and tenth centuries.

There are a number of late ninth-century and later Viking silver hoards from Cumbria and Lancashire, and the area was extensively settled by people of mixed Irish and Scandinavian roots in the tenth century, all of which provides a background to the circulation and loss of this Irish piece. Arnside, on the coast, is well placed as a port for contacts with eastern Ireland and the Isle of Man. The Arnside find makes an interesting addition to our knowledge of Irish metalwork and its redistribution in the Viking period.

This report appears in the journal Medieval Archaeology, volume 45 (2001), pp. 237-8.

• , . Medieval Archaeology , 237-8.

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Created: Tuesday 9th January 2001
Updated: Thursday 24th February 2011