Romanesque socketed copper-alloy openwork fitting

Romanesque socketed copper-alloy openwork fitting. Cast Ae staff or sceptre terminal with hollow circular openwork body with rectangular openwork socket projecting from apex. One face is decorated with a lion passant to sinister with his head arched over above his back and gripping his tail, that is curled up from between his legs. Cast and engraved decoration picks out the mouth, eye, limbs and paws, and emphasises the three prominent curls comprising the mane. A curled tendril passes obliquely behind the rear end of the lion. The other openwork face has an eagle displayed to sinister, with its neck arched up and over with its open-beaked head resting against the back of its neck. It stands between two curling fronds on a mount containing a trefoil. Cast and engraved detail shows beak, eyes and feathers on wings and tail. There are remains of pellets in relief around the border on both faces, more prominent and better preserved where they continue across the integral socket. The openwork sides have two S-shaped wyverns with foliate tails flanking a curled lobe and triangular element springing from both sides of a transverse bar with a central knop at base. The late Winchester style/early Romanesque decoration employed on the Ringland terminal has been provisionally ascribed to c.1050-1060AD.