Sheaths and Scabbards in England AD400-1100

ISBN-13: 9781841710655 / Angielski / Miękka / 2000 / 237 str.

Esther Cameron

Opis

This study focuses on the sheaths and scabbards of the Anglo-Saxon period, rather than the blades once held within them. Esther Cameron presents a largely technical approach to the study of material from the period of the first Anglo-Saxons in England in the 5th century, through to the 11th century. Alongside a large corpus of examples, she looks at the nature of the material evidence, of skin, leather and wood, and the composition of the materials used, their decomposition and preservation in the archeological reord. The wider significance of her findings for Anglo-Saxon archaeology and for the study of organic materials form archaeological contexts in general, are revealed in the final chapter.

Anglo-Saxon swords have always attracted scholarly attention. However, the almost intangible nature of Anglo-Saxon sheath and scabbard remains has meant that the most basic questions relating to their construction, places of manufacture, origins, status and stylistic development have gone largely unanswered. It is an aim of this work to redress the balance by examining sheaths and scabbards as composite objects, separate from blades, and to describe and classify them. In this book the archaeological context of sheaths/scabbards is described and new evidence of Anglo-Saxon leather-working recorded.