STIRRUP

A complete late Early Medieval (Anglo-Scandinavian) copper-alloy zoomorphic stirrup terminal of Williams Type 2b dating to the. mid to late 11th century. One of a pair which would have decorated the lower corners of a stirrup. The stirrup terminal is sub-rectangular enface and sub-triangular in profile with a flat base, angled front which tapers in width towards the top and concave back giving a C-shaped cross section for most of the length apart from the solid base which appears complete with no projecting lip.

The lower part is shaped into an animal head with prominent spiral nostrils on the blunt sub-rectangular snout at the lower end and two curling whiskers running back along the snout on either face. Above the snout is an indent before the raised brow ridge with slight indents for eyes. Above the domed head are two trinangular ears with indented centres. Above this a plain bar, possibly with some vertical grooving, runs to the slightly faceted knop at the upper terminal. The socketed reverse surface is less well finished, with some bubbling from the casting procedure visible towards its base. The socket is more deeply indented at the base where the piece is thicker..

The mount measures 50.9mm long, 11.2 mm wide at its base and 7.1mm wide at its top. The object ranges from 11.9mm in thickness at the base to mm to 3.7mm in thickness at the top and weighs 20.57g.

The mount can be closely paralleled with examples illustrated by Williams (1997) ; Williams states that the artefact type has a distribution largely confined to the east of England although as more examples are found through PAS this distribution is beng expanded, and suggests a date centred on the second half of the 11th century. In Williams tentative groupings this appears similar to 2b, ie with no projecting ledge at the base, but with a faceted knop similar to 2a, 4b also being similar and possibly a more worn example.