FOB

Iron Age (1st century BC to AD 1st century) fob/mount known as a 'dangler': The copper alloy 'dangler' has an elongated conical vertical protrusion, which has a broken upper edge. The break is not too recent. This protrudes from the centre of a circular platform which has four crescentic arms within an integral circular border. The circular border is incomplete, as a quarter is missing, and these breaks are not too recent. Between each arm there is crescentic openwork. The base of this platform is decorated with a low-relief groove on each arm, which has one or two stamped annulets. The centre of the arms has a low-relief conical pellet surrounded by four smaller low-relief conical pellets. The surface of the dangler has a light brown patina. The object measures 18.59mm tall, 29.85mm diameter and weighs 15.5g.

The function of this type of artefact is not known, and they are described as danglers, harness fittings, hangers and fobs on the database. Similar examples are illustrated in Jope (2000) Plate 225, No. M is the most similar, many of which are decorated with a triskele rather than a whirligig, such as the recorded example. MacGregor (1976b) illustrates two examples, Nos. 39 and 40, both of which are also triskele decorated, and MacGregor (1976a, 37-8) lists a further seven examples of trikele decorated fobs, four of which are not mentioned in Jope (2000). The PAS database has from June 2014 23 examples recorded, including this one, 8 of which are from the West Midlands.

Jope (ibid; 285) describes these danglers as being used as personal or equipment decorative accessories, however there is little evidence they were used on harnesses, instead an example from Kingsholm, Gloucestershire was example was found on a casket, probably used as a handle (Jope 2000, pp 285, No 225a-d). They are likely to date to the 1st century BC to 1st century AD (Jope 2000, 285).

Jope, E.M. 2000 Early Celtic Art in the British Isles Clarendon Press Oxford

MacGregor, M. 1976 Early Celtic Art in North Britain Leicester University Press