DRINKING HORN

An Early Medieval (Anglo Saxon) copper alloy drinking horn terminal dating to the 8th century. The body of the terminal is hollow and conical with four rivet holes; two just below the open end, one near the base and one through the base. One of the rivet holes looks irregular and might be a later modification. There is a band of interlace pattern just below the open end, forming a border. This interlace pattern has been chip-carved creating pyramid-shaped cells which originally may have contained an inlaid material, however no inlay survives now. The interlace pattern is interrupted by two (irregularly spaced) spiral motifs. The end of the terminal has been decoratively cast to form an open-mouthed beast. There is a bar connecting the upper and lower jaws so that the open mouth forms a loop, through which another element articulated. On the inner surface of this bar there is a notch. There is decoratively carving adding detail to the nose and the back of the beast's head. On the nose the carving forms a herring-bone pattern with a central ridge and on the back of the neck there are radiating lines between the beast's ears. The ears, eyes and nostrils all form cells in which enamel has been inlaid. The ears are triangular cells and one is empty but one still contains the inlaid green glass. The eyes and nostrils are circular cells and there are two very similar circular cells on the lower jar directly opposing the nostrils. Due to corrosion it is difficult to identify the inlaid material but it appears to be white/cream and it is opaque. There are patches of gilding surviving.

Other examples of drinking horn terminals recorded on the Portable Antiquities Scheme database include: WILT-9FFDA7, dating AD1100-1400; LIN-F0DD46, dating AD1000-1100; LIN-43B873 dating AD600-699. All of these are zoomorphic but vary considerably in style to this example.

A bronze fitting is illustrated in Webster & Backhouse (1991: no 179) and Smith (1923:118) which has a stylistically slightly similar zoomorphic terminal. It was dredged from the Thames near Westminster and is now part of the British Museum's collections (accession no 1869,0610.1). Webster & Backhouse (ibid.) write: "the function of the mount has been much debated, though the absence of decoration on the back of the upper strip, and its apparent V-shaped configuration indicate that it was fitted on a pointed wood or leather object designed to be seen from one side, most plausibly a knife or seax scabbard. It would appear to be a development of seventh-century seax-scabbard fittings with similar rivet clusters and asymmetrical chapes, such as that from Ford, near Laverstock, Wilts."

Kevin Leahy writes: "Other parallels include the chapes from the St. Ninian's Isle hoard (described as 'Pictish' although Leslie Webster emphasises their Mercian links). Again 8th century. Although I would not accept Smith's suggestion that the London scabbard mount was Irish it is possible that your find came from Ireland, the use of enamel is Irish but the technique was used in England. The interlace might also be Irish but there isn't really enough of it to be sure. The animal's head can be paralleled on Irish metal work."

Helen Geake writes: The chip-carved interlace can only be described as 'insular' - i.e. you find it everywhere in Ireland and Britain. The oblique ribbing is perhaps more common on Irish metalwork where you find it filling in spaces, e.g. in the middle of animals' bodies. There's a lot in The Work Of Angels, e.g. nos. 80, 116, 133-42, 156. As Kevin says, though, there seems to be a reluctance to give the St Ninian's Isle mounts or the River Thames object a northern or western provenance, perhaps because they are so unusual - like your object, they either fit in everywhere (in general) or nowhere (in the specifics).

Carol Neuman de Vegvar writes: The object does indeed look to me, both in scale and in form, to be a drinking horn terminal. The splay of the socket, the placement of the rivet holes, the dragonesque head type all fit nicely within normal parameters for a drinking horn fitting. That said, there's no way to be certain that the terminal is from a horn and not some other object type without a bit of horn residue on the interior; but your photos seem to indicate that all ephemeral material in the socket is lost.
The vertical bar in the dragon's mouth was probably intended for the loop of a suspension chain or cord; the semi-circular gouge on the inner surface of that bar about halfway along its length would seem to indicate the wear of a metal loop as the attachment of such a chain. The other end of the chain would likely have been attached at a rim mount or to an ornamental band roughly halfway along the length of the horn. For an image of such a suspension chain in use on a drinking or blast horn, see the relief of two young men at St. Mary Bishophill Junior in York (Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture, vol. 3, illustration 216).
The surviving presence of enamel is unusual but not unique: see the terminal from Ballymeena, Co. Antrim, now Ashmolean Museum 1927.123, included in the British Museum Work of Angels catalog.
The three closest parallels (and published images of the same) are found either in Ireland or Norse graves in western Norway (but considered to have come to Norway as loot from Ireland):
Copper-alloy horn terminal from Coolure Demesne crannog, Lough Derravaragh, Co. Westmeath, Ireland, now National Museum of Ireland (E499: 460): see : Aidan O'Sullivan, Rob Sands and Eamonn P. Kelly; Coolure Demesne crannog, Lough Derravaragh: an introduction to its archaeology and landscapes: figure 41 and p. 102: Similar open jaw and animal type.
Clooneenbaun (Lough Creevin) Co. Roscommon, also National Museum of Ireland, (E499: 459).
Gjeite, Nord Trondelag, Mound 2 (excavated by Torun Herje in 1987): Vitenskapsmuseum, Universitet i Trondheim, T 21080, from a woman's grave, dating ca. 800. Unpublished when I saw it in 1994.
Other similar examples:
Hove, Sogn og Fjord (Bergen, Arkeologisk Institutt, University of Bergen, B 5551f) Closed mouth but similar hatching along snout: see: Haakon Schetelig: 'Fortegnelse over de til Bergens museum i aarne 1898-1900 indkomne sager ældre end Reformationen" Bergens Museums Aarbok, 1904, 1-61, figure 12.
The examples from Vinjum, Sogn og Fjord (Bergen, Arkeologisk Institutt, University of Bergen, B 773g), Bud, Møre og Romsdal (Vitenskapsmuseum, Universitet i Trondheim, T 9607), and Voll, Nord Trondelag (Vitenskapsmuseum, Universitet i Trondheim, T 1184) have similar open mouths probably for attaching a chain, but are different animal types.
There are also similarities of animal type to a wooden terminal from Ballinderry Crannog No. 1, Co. Westmeath (National Museum of Ireland, Reg # 1932: 7789) which Hencken thought was a horn terminal (in Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 43 (1936), 103-240 at p. 170 and picture) but which Connor Newman has recently republished as a ferrule tip.
Although the closest parallels come from Ireland, I would be cautious about asserting that the above find is also of Irish provenance purely on that basis. The zoomorphic terminals as a group are found in earlier contexts in England than in Ireland and seem as a type to have immigrated into Ireland by means of connections between elite circles, both religious and secular. However, in the case of the above terminal, the presence of the yellow enamel inlaid at the ends of both jaws and possibly also green enamel in the right ear, in combination with the parallels mentioned above, tend to suggest an origin in Ireland; to the best of my knowledge, none of the Anglo-Saxon terminals have enamel on them.

Dimensions: length: 49.03mm; diameter of socket: 19.73mm; weight: 22.25g.

Reference: Smith, R. A. 1923. A Guide to the Anglo-Saxon and Foreign Teutonic Antiquities in The Department of British and Medieval Antiquities. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Webster, L. and Backhouse, J. 1991. 'The Making of England. Anglo-Saxon Art and Culture AD 600-900'. The British Museum, London.

Youngs, S. and Craddock, P. T. 1990. The `Work of Angels'. Masterpieces of Celtic Metalwork, 6th-9th centuries AD. British Museum Press: London.