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Starohrvatska prosvjeta, Vol. III No. 47, 2020.

Original scientific paper

A cloisonné scabbard mouthpiece fitting from Mali Mošunj in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Central Bosnian Canton, Vitez Municipality), with particular attention to similar fittings from European sites

Željko Demo orcid id orcid.org/0000-0002-7433-7429

Full text: croatian pdf 863 Kb

page 73-118

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Full text: english pdf 863 Kb

page 73-118

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Abstract

Some thirty or more years ago, a gold fitting decorated with cloisonné-work was found in Mali Mošunj in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Subsequently, it was identified as part of the scabbard of a sword. The materials used in its making are expensive and available to few, and its construction suggests it was manufactured in a specialised goldsmith’s workshop equipped and trained to work with gold, garnets and ivory(?). Rare comparative archaeological evidence classifies it among precious scabbard mouthpiece fittings, which could only have been worn by a high-ranking member of the late Roman military elite serving in Dalmatia during the “Dalmatian dynasty” of Marcellinus and Julius Nepos, or later, during the reign of Odoacer. i.e. in the last third or quarter of the fifth century. The appendix to this paper analyses data related to cloisonné on scabbard mouthpiece fittings from nineteen early Merovingian sites covered by the Beauvais-Planig type (type 2), for which a classification into subtypes 2a to 2d is proposed here.

Keywords

Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mali Mošunj, Kalvarija hill (Crkvina), Late Antiquity; province of Dalmatia; Marcellinus; Julius Nepos; Odoacer, military equipments; scabbard mouthpiece fitting; cloisonné (gold, garnets, ivory?); decorative motif of birds-of-prey heads;

Hrčak ID:

258500

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/258500

Publication date:

1.6.2021.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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