HARNESS PENDANT 74372

Description: Complete copper alloy medieval harness pendant, roughly circular in shape and c.35-37mm in diameter. The loop, which is turned through 90 degrees, is 9mm diameter and 4mm thick where it joins the pendant (thinning to 1mm at furthest extremity). There is a slight nick (?purposeful) in the top edge of the loop and the piercing is 3mm in diameter. The pendant itself is 0.5-1mm thick. The reverse of the pendant is basically flat but a few indentations seem to line up with the cells on the decorated side, suggesting it may have been cast this way rather than worked later. On the decorated side, a quatrefoil with forked ends lies slightly above centre and has been created by a number of punched circular indentations in an already lowered 'cell' area. The two horizontal arms of the quatrefoil join seemlessly together, while the vertical arms are more disjointed. That at 12 o'clock is separated from the horizontal arms by a thin area of metal while its counterpart at 6 o'clock is separated by a c.2mm wide area the thickness of the rest of the pendant surface. Within these 'cell' areas are a number of punched circles c.2-3mm in diameter. They presumably held enamel, although they don't particularly follow a pattern - all have a punched circle at each of the forked ends, then some work backwards with punches along the forks, while others -most notably the one at three o'clock- follows one line down the middle as poopsed to two which join further below. No circles seem to overlap. At the centre there is simply a horizontal rectangular area. Surrounding the quatrefoil area are a series of radiating zig zag lines with diagonal and horizontals joining them, rather like a spider's web. These now contain the only traces of gilding to survive (as well as an area directly below the loop), although the entire surface would have been gilded. Weighs 12.42g.

Object type: HARNESS PENDANT

Last import: August 15, 2017