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The Southwark Knife Reconsidered

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2011

Summary

The iron knife with silver inlay found in Southwark in 1930 is reconsidered in the light of more recent publication of weapons with silver inlay from the East Baltic area. The technical and stylistic parallels suggest an origin in that area and a date within the period 1100–1300.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1971

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References

page 281 note 1 B.M. no. 1933, 5–10, 1. Wilson, D. M., Anglo-Saxon Ornamental Metalwork 700–1100, in the British Museum (1964), 57.Google Scholar

page 281 note 2 Wilson, op. cit., 33–4, 173–4, no. 81 (full description), pl. xxxi; Smith, , Antiq. Journ. xiv (1934), 61, fig. 1, and pl. xi; Ward-Perkins, London Museum Catalogues, no. 7: Mediaeval Catalogues (1940), 51, mentioning the suggestion of a twelfth-century date, but doubting it (apparently as being too early).Google Scholar

page 281 note 3 Arch. Aeliana2, v (1861), 143.Google Scholar

page 281 note 4 Catalogue of Antiquities, chiefly British, at Alnwick Castle (1880), 72, figs.; on the basis of an (incorrect) comparison with the spear-head from Coombs, near Steyning, Sussex, assigned to the Anglo-Saxon period. The Coombs spear-head is in fact of a well-known Viking type of the eleventh century; but it is in any case irrelevant in the present context.Google Scholar

page 281 note 5 P.S.A. Newcastle upon Tyne, 4, i (1923), 78–9.Google Scholar

page 281 note 6 It is now in the joint Museum of Antiquities of the University and of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne: no. 1860. 5.

page 282 note 1 Miss Vera Evison kindly tells me that, for the same reason, examination under X-ray has proved no more informative.

page 282 note 2 That reserved centres in the ovate (leaf-shaped) motifs, and the possibly spiral character of the apparently circular scroll-ends may have been obscured is not in the least surprising, given the obviously decayed condition of the surface. Welcome confirmation of the above somewhat subjective account has recently been supplied by Miss Evison, who has been so kind as to write: ‘On an early visit to Newcastle I noticed the Burradon spear, together with a drawing of the inlay, and noted that I didn't think the pattern was accurately drawn.’

page 282 note 3 Holmquist, W., ‘Tauschierte Metallarbeiten d. Nordens’, Kungl. Vitterhets, Historie och Anti-kvitets Akademie: Handlingar 70, 2 (1951)Google Scholar,passim; for a fifth-century example from Droxford, Hants., see Evison, , Fifth Century Invasions South of the Thames (1965), pl. VIc.Google Scholar

page 283 note 1 Smith, for example, has compared panel c with the design on the cylindrical silver pendant in the Terslev hoard— Antiq. Journ. xiv (1934), 61. There is indeed a certain general resemblance, but the technique in which the Terslev piece is executed is “entirely different; such resemblance as there is remains in any case an isolated factor, and is not therefore to be relied on.Google Scholar

page 283 note 2 Wilson, op. cit., 34; Schramm, , Herrschafts-zeichen und Staatssymbolik, i (1954), Tf. 32 c—the Pavia stool.Google Scholar

page 283 note 3 I have noted some four swords, three spear-heads, and fiveaxes from Finland (including Karelia).

page 283 note 4 C. A. Nordman, in Vaaben, ed. B. Thordeman: vol. xii B (1943) in the series Nordisk Kultur, Stockholm. An admirable postcard of the splendid sword from Eura was available at the National Museum, Helsinki, at least as early as 1934.

page 283 note 5 Loc. cit., 59–61, fig. 210 (sword), fig. 211 (battle-axe).

page 283 note 6 Kivikoski, E., Die Eisenzeit Finnlands, i (1947). 12, 15–16; ii (1951), nos. 1090, 1092, 1109, 1110, and 1115—pp. 39–40, pls. 140, 144, and 145.Google Scholar

page 284 note 1 J. Leppäaho, ‘Späteisenzeitliche Waffen aus Finnland, ein Tafelwerk’, with a preface by Kivikoski, Ella, SMYA lxi (1964), Tf. 40–3, 57–8 61–3.Google Scholar

page 285 note 1 Loc. cit., Tf. 61 c.

page 285 note 2 Loc. cit., Tf. 58, 1 a

page 285 note 3 Nordman, Vaaben (as in n. 4, p. 283), 59.

page 285 note 4 Another sword, from Käkisalmi in Karelia, was found in a grave specifically dated by Kivikoski to the thirteenth century: Eisenzeit (as in n. 6, p. 283), ii (1951), 39, no. 1092, and Tf. 140.

page 285 note 5 Kivikoski, Eisenzeit, i (1947), 12, 15–16.

page 285 note 6 Kivikoski, , Finland (Ancient Peoples and Places Series, 1967), 115, 118.Google Scholar

page 285 note 7 Nordman, , Vaaben (1943), 61Google Scholar; Kivikoski, , Finland (1967), 118.Google Scholar

page 285 note 8 Dr. Carl Meinander, National Museum of Finland, Helsinki, has also been kind enough to re-emphasize to me, in conversation in 1966, the view that these weapons were not produced in Finland. But he found himself no more able to suggest where they were produced than was Nordman in 1943.