Scabbard chape of silver gilt

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A scabbard chape was placed at the end of the scabbard to protect the sword tip. This silver gilt example is one of two from a hoard of Pictish metalwork found on the site of an early Christian church on St Ninian's Isle at Dunrossness in Shetland.

The chape ends in two snout-nosed animal heads, each with protruding tongue. The eyes are set with glass. The other chape in the hoard has an inscription on its body, but this one is decorated with geometric and interlace patterns.

The two chapes in the St Ninian's hoard have no surviving parallels, although decorative elements from both, and the inscription from the other chape, can be paralleled on other metalwork from Northumbria.

Record details

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• Online ID: 000-100-036-432-C
• Image Rights Holder: National Museums Scotland
• Project: National Museums Scotland
  Project description   View all records in project
• Ref: National Museums Scotland  X.FC 283
• Date: 8th century
  Buried between 750 and 825
  
• Material: Silver; zoomorphic terminals, the heads decorated with spirals, fluted snouts and protruding tongues, glass insets for eyes; curved band on one side with deep hatching forming multiple triangles, the other having two panels in chip-carving technique separ
  Scabbard chape
  
• Dimensions: 3.20" max W
  
• What: Scabbard chape
  
• Subject:
• Who:
• Where: Scotland, Shetland, St Ninian's Isle
  
• Event:
• Description: Scabbard chape of silver with zoomorphic terminals with glass insets for eyes, from St Ninian's Isle, Pictish, 8th century
  
• References:
  • Small, A., Thomas, C., & Wilson, D. M. St. Ninian's Isle and its Treasure. London: Oxford University Press,1973 
  • Webster, Leslie and Backhouse, Janet. The making of England. Anglo-Saxon art and culture AD 600-900. London: British Museum Press, 1991, pp 223-4. 
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