DRINKING HORN

Silver drinking horn terminal dating from the early medieval late Saxon period 10th to 11th century AD.

Surface metal analysis conducted by the British Museum's Department of Conservation and Scientific Research indicated an approximate silver content for the terminal of 92-94%, the remainder being copper, gold and lead, and for a surviving rivet of 98.5 - 99.5% silver, the remainder being copper and lead. The terminal weighs 30.1 grams (including rivet).

The terminal is in the form of a slightly tapered socket terminating in a cast, three-dimensional animal head probably representing a lion with a very worn, rounded snout; length, 50mm; diameter, 15mm; thickness, 1.5mm. At the triple-scalloped, open end of the socket, the uppermost of three projections survives modelled in the form of a small animal head with drilled eyes and arc-punched ears. The snout is slightly damaged on either side where a small loop for an attachment rivet has perhaps broken away (unless there was originally a beard-like feature here divided by a roundel similar to the one shown on the Glatton stone [see below]) and the head is pierced by a rivet hole between the ears, which is perhaps secondary. On either side of and underneath the neck of the socket are three further rivet holes. In the one on the left a silver rivet survives, suggesting that there may have been material from the original horn present within the terminal, which has been scraped out recently, leaving bright scratches on the metal.

The main head of the terminal is shown with gaping fangs and incised, circular eyes with drilled pupils set in deeply incised, arc-shaped sockets extending at the backs into slightly raised brows. The prominently moulded, flattened-back ears are tear-shaped with lobed tips pointing inwards and with incised, tear-shaped hollows enclosed by worn lines of long, punched, apex-to-base triangles. The tips of the ears are joined underneath the lobes and over the top of the head by two light grooves, while their bases are joined under the neck by a raised half-collar decorated with another line of punched triangles. Worn traces of the same types of punched lines survive round the sides of the jaws and muzzle. The back of the head is incised and punched with a ruff-like mane consisting of a row of narrow, triangular scrolls with lobed ends, while the back of the neck is incised with a scale-like pattern of irregular, interlocking lozenges with worn fur patterning extending between and beneath the ears. Underneath the neck, long, punched and incised tongue shapes extend to front and rear of the half-collar. There are also traces of dot-punched borders round the rivet holes and scallops at the open end of the socket and at the backs of the brows of the main head.

The zoomorphic form of the terminal is comparable in broad terms with silver terminals of the mid to Late Anglo-Saxon period from Grantham, Lincolnshire, and West Ilsley, West Berkshire (Treasure Annual Reports 2003, no. 85 and 2005/6, no. 303), while features of the decoration of the head connect it more particularly in style with examples of Late Anglo-Saxon art. I am most grateful to Leslie Webster for drawing my attention to the very similar lions' heads with matching ears and scrolled manes at the corners of f2v of the Aethelstan Psalter, dated to the early 10th century, and to a maned lion-mask on a sculptural stone fragment from Glatton, Huntingdonshire (E. Temple, 1976, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts 900-1066, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, vol. 2, London, cat. no. 5, ill. 32; T.D. Kendrick, 1972 (2nd edn.), Anglo-Saxon Art to A.D. 900, New York/London, 210, pl. 98). In ivory sculpture, the fanged jaws, mane of narrow triangular locks, and eyes with drilled pupils set in deep, arc-shaped sockets are all paralleled on the lion's head carved at the narrower end of a pen-case found in the City of London, dating from the mid-11th century (J. Backhouse, D.H. Turner and L. Webster [eds.], 1984, The Golden Age of Anglo-Saxon Art 966-1066, London, cat. no. 132, pl. 25). A similar mane, but with lobed ends as on the terminal, is shown on one of the two lions savaging a man at the centre of one side of the same case. Also, open-jawed heads with raised ears, dot-punched borders and the same type of eye and arced socket appear at either end of a Late Anglo-Saxon silver sword-pommel found in the River Seine (D.M. Wilson, 1964, Anglo-Saxon Ornamental Metalwork 700-1100 in the British Museum, London cat. no. 66).

The drinking-horn terminal from the Burton-in-Kendal area can be dated to the 10th to mid-11th century on the basis of the above stylistic parallels and would therefore qualify as Treasure under two of the stipulated criteria of the Treasure Act: it is more than 300 years old and the precious metal content exceeds 10%.