MOUNT

An incomplete gilded silver mount, now in two pieces. It is broadly rectangular in shape and hollow to the reverse, filled with a white concretion that is hard and apparently brittle, with traces of a red colour throughout. The back-plate is missing.

The front of the mount is decorated with four triangular cells, the central two being isosceles triangles with one inverted, and the outer two being right-angle triangles placed in opposing corners. The cells are inlaid with coloured glass or gemstone, the corner pieces being dark orange-yellow in colour and the central pair being greenish-yellow and pale yellow. The latter has been damaged to the reverse and has lost the extra layer of white concretion, visible to the other central triangle at the break. There is a modern addition of white-tack or similar behind this, added by the finder to stop the gold waffle foil behind the glass from being lost. A gold waffle foil can be seen behind each of the settings. The damage to the central triangles shows that they were made as separate units with silver walls, turned inwards at top and bottom to secure the glass and waffle inserts in place. The rim of the cells has been gilded.

The settings are bordered on all sides by two lines of opposed punched triangles, many retaining niello inlay. The borders have been left silver.

The outer edges of the mount are gilded. The long edges extend slightly outwards from top to base, over c.3.8mm. The short ends are more obviously angled outwards, extending into a side flange at the base 1.2mm thick and c.5mm long. Each is pierced with three rivet holes and five of these remain, each one silver with a globular head. The central rivet of each flange is short (3.3mm long), burred over to the underside and a paler silver than the other rivets which are much longer (5.6mm long), move freely and the heads are darker in colour (probably tarnish).

The underside and inside of the object is not gilded (as far as is possible to see). The break is jagged and has broken the object at the centre, between the two innermost triangular cells.