Ormside bowl

Description

The bowl is a double-shelled cup made from 2 pieces riveted together with dome-headed rivets and beaded collars. The surface of the bowl is decorated with a chased repousse technique. Sometime after it was originally made the bowl was converted into a drinking vessel.

Inner bowl

The inner cup is made from gilt-bronze and is riveted with studs of blue glass and silver. The base plate of the internal bowl features 16 circular pieces of glass within a ring of cloisons and five further rivets, of which the central is missing. The gilding on the bowl was added after the other decoration. The inner bowl could have been made in York as a blue-glass stud matching the bowl's was found there.

Outer bowl

The outer shell is made from silver-gilt, the rim once had a U-sectioned strip of ungilded silver although this has now mostly been lost. This strip was originally attached using 4 clips in the shape of animal heads although 2 of these have also been lost. The bowl's gilt-silver exterior is decorated with Anglo-Saxon style interlaced fantastic creatures amid Continental style vines, the frontal gaze of some of the creatures on the bowl is a common occurrence in carvings of this type. These decorations show plants, grapes, fruit, animals and birds in both naturalistic and grotesque style. Another beaded band is riveted on in four places outside the rim. These rivets have square mountings, in one of which a piece of blue glass survives. The external base plate features five domed rivets. The interlaced cruciform decoration between these rivets has been made using a repoussé technique. The bowl may also once have had a footring made from gilded wire.

Comparisons

The Ormside bowl is similar in aspects of its style to several bowls from the St Ninian's Isle Treasure but is closer in style to the Witham bowl, a lost early eighth century hanging-bowl found in the River Witham. The decoration on the bowl has been compared to the St Petersburg Bede, Barberini Gospels, Gandersheim Casket and Rupertus Cross. The conical bosses on the base of the bowl resemble features of the Kildalton Cross.

The embossed and fine-lined filigreed designs on the bowl have been compared to those of the Wye Down pendant and the Book of Durrow leading to it being dated in 1958 by G. Haseloff to 650–700, though this now seems too early.