File:Early Medieval mount with granulated decoration from Roxby cum Risby (FindID 521670).jpg

Possible Mount. Cast object with a semi-circular or lunate plate with knops at its ends, a slightly tapered stem and the (now lunate) stub of an apical loop. Decoration on the display face of the plate and on the front and sides of the stem includes a cast relief border to the plate and three bosses; a further three bosses, diminishing in size appear on the front and either side of the stem, making a total of nine such features. The back of the object is plain, though a strip of copper alloy circa 3.6mm wide and 1.8mm thick attached to the upper part of the stem may suggest either a relict of fastening gear or attachment as a mount to a larger copper alloy object.

The bosses and borders were enhanced by the addition of coiled or linear arrangements of silver granules of diameter circa 0.5mm. A coiled addition to the central and largest boss on the plate, a spiral of granules of overall diameter 5.9mm, was detached at the time of its discovery. The lowest and largest boss on the face of the stem, immediately above the detached spiral, resembles a ring and dot rendered in granules, with two rectangular panels of three strands of granules above that. The bosses on either side of the stem resemble ring and dot of diminishing size, and are probably again enhanced by granules. The border of the lunate plate bears intermittent relicts of a presumably continuous line of granules.

The granulated decoration is related to that reported from 87 Viking age objects from Birka, Sweden (Duczko, W. 1985, Birka V The Filigree and Granulation Work of the Viking Period, Kungl. Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien, Almqvist & Wiksell International, Stockholm, Sweden, ISBN 91-7402-162-1).

The overall form recalls that of Viking-Age Thor's Hammer pendants, though this object departs from the standardised angular conventions and the simple form of such objects. Pendants from Birka usually bear apical suspension loops resembling those of earlier Anglo-Saxon pendants, which appear as broad decorated strips at the same angle as the plane of the display face; they do not resemble the integrally cast partial loop retained by this object. The emphasis of bossed decoration and the tapering stem both recall the knotted Club of Hercules, another amuletic motif of the Early Medieval period, though this reporter is unaware of hybridisation between these masculine motifs. The Birka finds do include a lunula pendant for which a parallel from Smolensk is presented and for which Slavonic origins in western Russia are suggested (Duczko 1985, pages 66-67, figs 77-79). The illustrated examples include triplicate bossed decoration, as appears on both the plate and the shaft of this example. An Early Medieval date and a Scandinavian affinity is suggested: circa 850-1000.

Length: 26.8mm, Width: 19.2mm, Thickness: 5.6mm, Weight: 5.42gms.