UNIDENTIFIED OBJECT

Surface metal analysis conducted at the British Museum indicated an approximate silver content for the mercury gilded fragment of 97%, the remainder being copper, gold and lead. The fragment weighs 3.67 grams.

The find consists of an ovoid fragment of thick sheet metal projecting to a point at one end and with incised repoussé decoration; length, 32.5mm; width, 20mm. At the opposite end is a gable-shaped tab with a grooved, raised edge enclosing a wavy foliate motif and separated by a curved line of bead-and-reel (possibly the edge of a roundel or arcade) from a J-shaped scroll between frond-like elements and two amorphous bosses. Insufficient remains to identify the function of the piece with any certainty, although it is perhaps part of a decorative sheet covering for a book-cover, casket, or reliquary (cf. the late 8^th/early 9^th-century Enger Reliquary: P. Lasko, 1994 (2^nd edn.), Ars Sacra 800-1200, Yale University Press, pls. 10-11).

The foliate motif at the 'gable' end resembles the stylised and occasionally very simplified acanthus borders found on ivory panels, metalwork and manuscripts of the Carolingian period in the 9^th-10^th centuries (e.g. above the canons of the gospel book Harley 2788), in which bead-and-reel frames also occur, as in the arcades of an ivory casket panel at Quedlinburg (O.M. Dalton, 1909, Catalogue of the Ivory Carvings of the Christian Era with examples of Mohammedan art and carvings in bone in the Department of British and Mediaeval Antiquities and Ethnography of the British Museum, London, 50, cat. no. 51, pl. 22, 51; J. Hubert, J. Porcher and W.F. Volbach, 1970, Carolingian Art, London, illust. 69; P. Williamson, 2010, Medieval Ivory Carvings, Early Christian to Romanesque, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, 220-221, cat. no. 54; Lasko op. cit., pl. 114).

On the basis of the above comparisons, the fragment from the South Cambridgeshire District area can probably be dated to the 9^th-10^th centuries and it 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%.

B.M. Ager, Curator, Department of Britain, Europe and Prehistory, The British Museum (16 February 2015)