harness pendant(剣菱形杏葉);
horse-harness
- Museum number
- OA+.1253
- Description
-
Two ornamental harness pendants, made of gilt bronze, iron and silver; shape of pendant resembling an oval to which a rhombus is attached; pendants like this were attached to the harness of a horse.
- Production date
- 6thC
- Dimensions
-
Length: 20.90 centimetres
-
Length: 21.60 centimetres
- Curator's comments
-
Pendants
Iron, copper, silver, gold, about AD 500
Given by sir A.W.Franks (Gowland Collection)
馬具
Decorative horse equipment
Rulers were buried in tombs with their weapons and decorative horse equipment.
The leather straps were bound with patterned silk textiles and hung with gilded pendants.
The shape of the pendants may imitate arrowheads or tassels. Very similar ones were made in the Korean peninsula during the same period, which may then have been imported into Japan. There were also decorative metal fittings on the saddled and bosses where the leather straps joined.
(Label Copy, 2017)
-
Smith et al 1990
The origins of the skill of the Japanese in decorative metalwork, so noticeable in the sword-fittings of later periods, go back to work of this sort from the Kofun period. It is known from 'haniwa' models that such pieces were attached by leather or textile strapping, OA + 1250 and 1253 were excavated by William Gowland from different tombs.
- Location
- On display (G93/dc5/sG)
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited:
2006 Oct 13-, BM Japanese Galleries, 'Japan from prehistory to the present'
- Acquisition date
- 1889 (15 April)
- Department
- Asia
- Registration number
- OA+.1253
