ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS
published from Strokestown, co. Roscommon, and Lagore, co. Meath,[1] and thus confirm the view that this style of ornamentation was indigenous in Ireland.
The bone medallion[2] of which an inverted illustration is given (coloured plate fig. 6) was found in the City of London and was one of the late Sir Wollaston Franks's many gifts to the British Museum. It must be numbered among the rarer antiquities of the Viking period, and is a fair example of that peculiar art. It is almost complete, and has a circular depression at the back spanned by a broad bar which has not been cut away, the evident intention being to attach the disk to the person by means of a strap or cord, much in the same way as a Chinese toggle. The front is slightly convex, and is carved in low relief, to represent a male figure accommodated to the space by a considerable distortion of the limbs, the legs being turned upwards and connected with the arms by interlaced cords. The head, which must have projected somewhat from the top, is unfortunately destroyed, but what appears to be the beard may be seen on the breast. The body and limbs are for the most part covered with a granular pattern that has been taken to represent chain-mail, but occurs also on animals;[3] and the junction of the limbs with the trunk is marked by a spiral curve that is familiar from Irish illuminated manuscripts[4] and metal-work[5] of this period. This characteristic is also found in Norway and Sweden on work of the eighth century,[6] and is one of several proofs of intercourse between the peoples living east and west of the North Sea. The contour line is also a noticeable feature, while the notches adjoining the junction of the limbs are regarded as reminiscences of the foliage seen on Irish work and contemporary productions of the Carlovingian period.[7]
The human figure similarly represented in a distorted (but not disjointed) form occurs on an unusually large brooch,[8] differing only in details from a well-known Gothland type that first appears in the seventh century. It was found in Nordland, Norway, and is over 7 in. long, the foot being ornamented at the back with the design in question, but in a still more complicated manner. Here again the head of the figure is missing, its place having been occupied by the catch of the pin; while the interlacing on the figure itself is confined to the beard. A wood carving in Copenhagen Museum representing the trunk of a bearded man in scale-armour from Queen Thyra's Mound[9] shows several points of similarity, but perhaps the closest parallel is the crucified figure on one face of the well-known Jellinge stone near Veile, Jutland, so that the tenth century is not an unlikely date.
A specimen of purer Anglo-Saxon work in bone is here illustrated
- ↑ Dublin Museum, Wilde's Cat. figs. 226-44; Jewitt's Reliquary, v (1863), 71.
- ↑ Proc. Soc. Antiq. (Ser. 2), iii, 225; Memoires des Antiquaires du Nord, 1866-71, pl. xviii, fig. 2, p. 346; Kornerup, Kongehöiene i Jellinge, 23.
- ↑ As on the well-known caskets of Cunigunda in Munich Museum and of St. Cordula in Cammin Cathedral; also on the Kirk Braddan cross-shaft (Isle of Man), figd. Arch. Journ. xiv, 264.
- ↑ e.g. the symbol of St. Luke in the Book of Durrow (Westwood, Facsimiles, &c. pl. v, p. 22).
- ↑ Stag-like animal on Lullingstone bowl. Arch. lvi, 41; V.C.H. Kent, i, 378.
- ↑ The third style of Dr. B. Salin (Altgermanische Thier-ornamentik, 273).
- ↑ Sophus Müller, Thier-ornametitik im Norden, 103.
- ↑ Salin, op. cit. figs. 145, 494, 494a (eighth or ninth century).
- ↑ Kornerup, Kongehöiene i Jellinge, pl. xv, fig. 1.
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