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Details
LOT 0796
Roman Bronze Bear-Head Dagger Pommel
1ST-2ND CENTURY A.D.
1 3/4 in. (29.5 grams, 44 mm).
Hollow-formed with acute lower jaw, triangular muzzle, gusset and rounded rim to the socket-mouth. [No Reserve]
Provenance
Property of a Gloucestershire, UK, collector.
Property of an East Sussex, UK, gentleman.
Literature
See similar mounts in shape of eagle from Cerne Abbas, in Worrell, S., Worrell, 'Roman Britain in 2005. II. Finds reported under the Portable Antiquities Scheme', in Britannia, 37 (2006), pp.429-466, p.457, fig.27
Footnotes
The function of the animal head terminal in the form of a stylised eagle or griffin head found in the canabae at Caerleon was interpreted as
a possible pommel for a sword or other weapon due to the rectangular hole at the top of the head for a tang or other attachment.
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