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Details
LOT 1660
Late Anglo-Scandinavian Viking Bronze Casket Key
10TH-13TH CENTURY A.D.
2 1/8 in. (7.67 grams, 54 mm).
For a slide lock, the shaft with an open circular projection to one end and a larger openwork rectangular projection to the other end terminating with a T-shaped extension. [No Reserve]
Provenance
Acquired on the UK art market circa 2005.
From an old North Country, UK, collection.
This lot is accompanied by an illustrated lot declaration signed by the Head of the Antiquities Department, Dr Raffaele D'Amato.
Literature
Hammond, Aaron Benet's Artefacts of England & the United Kingdom, Fourth edition, Coggeshall, 2021, p.526, nos.V17-0102, V17-0103, & V17-0104.
Footnotes
There is much discussion among the scholars on such slide keys, known popularly as 'Viking' keys. According to Kevin Leahy '...they do look something like the keys that come from Viking graves and from Viking sites but I have never seen an example that had the 'T' shaped extension for the end of the bit and I can't actually see how this would have functioned in a slide lock.' An iron example was found at Coppergate in York, in a 12th to 13th century context.
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