Winchester City Museum, Historic Resources Centre, Hyde House, Winchester, accessions no. 2943 WS 236

Found in archaeological excavation north of Winchester cathedral in 1964 in Norman rubble deriving from nave or baptistery of Old Minster; Final Phase 58 (Provisional Phase 950), c. 1093-4

Old Minster

One possible dressed face survives; the carved surface is somewhat battered. Pink mortar adhering to the broken rear surface suggests reuse.

The dressed face forms the right side; only one face is carved.

The main carved surface is raised 2 cm from the background and has an undecorated sloping area 1 cm wide along the front right edge. At the top the background is broken away, but the carved surface ends in a smooth curve which rises vertically (as on the right) above the now missing background. Diagonally across the piece there is a pattern of raised ribs, 3–4 mm wide, joined by smaller ribs, partly in a herring-bone pattern, which gives the surface a 'knitted' texture. At the bottom left corner the relief is raised 3 cm above the background in a sub-rectangular area which rises 1 cm above the main surface and is c. 5 x 3.5 cm in area. This raised area has five ribs, each c. 8 mm wide, and each perhaps with a twist. These ribs are angled to right of vertical and thus run at an angle to the main pattern. Towards the bottom the pattern on the raised area ends in a straight line, at right angles to the direction of the ribs.

It is impossible to interpret this complex piece, but it may be part (possibly the shoulder) of a figure clad in armour. The square area might then be the sword-pommel. It is best compared to the armoured figure in the scene on Winchester (Old Minster) no. 88 (Ill. 646), but the armour pattern is not the same, and the present carving could be part of an entirely different scene. Its place of discovery would place it in the western part of the nave, and not at the east end of the later apse where no. 88 was found. Moreover, the pink brick-filled mortar on the broken back of the present fragment suggests that the carving of which it formed part was broken up and reused as rubble in the Anglo-Saxon period. If so, it is likely to be earlier than the rebuildings of the later tenth century.

Late tenth to early eleventh century or earlier

Biddle and Kjølbye-Biddle forthcoming a, fig. 152, no. 88