Casgliadau Arlein

Lead strip of circular section at one end and of flatter wider section at the other. This is evidently a fragment from some larger object, which has been cut off at the wider end and twisted off at the other. The wide end bears ornament in relief, which continues up to the point at which the section becomes circular. The lowered field of the ornament appears to have been delibereately roughened. Both form and ornament reveal that this fragment is related to the Irish series of zoomorphic penannular brooches with champleve enamelled terminals, the wide end corresponding to tone of the terminals and the circular end to part of the hoop of such a brooch. The cross bar and drop shaped motive at the hoop end are clearly the last vestiges of the animal eyes and snout of the zoomorphic penannular, and though they too lack precise parallels they are apparently similar to one of the terminals on Kilbride-Jones No 32. Current thinking suggests this was a failed attempt to produce a die from a wax model and may have reached the site as scrap rather than have been produced there.