BOOK FITTING

Cast gilded copper alloy book clasp of Howsam type A.9.2. It is incomplete, consisting of part of an openwork plate with a complex tapering terminal section. The plate has a central quatrefoil boss with incised lines indicating that the lobes represent petals or leaves. This was surrounded by four openwork, curved loops, two of which remain complete, together with a section of the third. A small rivet hole also remains between one of the complete loops and the fragment of the third loop. There would presumably have been a similar one on the opposite side of the plate, at the point of the present break.

The plate is topped with a large and elaborate terminal. There is a small knop on either corner of the mount and a long, tapering projection from the middle of the edge of the plate. This projection expands to an ornamented square lozenge and then tapers to an abraded point which may be a debased animal head. There is a separate ornamented square set atop the lozenge and a large circular hole on the back. The plate is of quite thin metal but the terminal projection is much thicker and chunkier. There are traces of gilding over the whole of the front face of the object but the back seems undecorated. Length 64.0mm, width 29.8mm, thickness 11.1mm, weight 33.36g.

See record SUR-322ED5 for a book clasp of similar type, although considerably smaller. The hole on the reverse would have fitted over a peg on the opposite cover, and there would originally have been a hole at the end of the animal-head terminal which would have held a loop or ring to help in pulling the clasp off the peg. This is an unusual example of the type.