metal detector, detecting find from beach on Sheppey

was out recently metal detecting and
found this on a beach at warden point, sheppey. new to this game so don't know what it is. Seems to be made of brass, with faint outline of a lion on one side.

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Education

Tags:

• Humanities
• metal
• detector
• detecting
• find
• beach
• warden
• point
• isle
• of
• sheppey
• brass
• artifact
• unknown
• age

[FortGuide]

thanks for all the responses. If 'stirrup mount' is entered into a Google image search it returns a number of similar examples of these stirrup mounts, some almost identical.

[MorrisseyRT]

Could it be an ax head.

[FortGuide]

@MorrisseyRT its only approx 30mm in height and I have seen something very similar on google also listed as a stirrup mount

[drewstaism]

looks like gold to me mate. brass would tarnish. do a SG test, ill bet that is gold.

[MrMrtiki]

Being the top has a bowtie sort of notches maybe made to tie a split handle to it & the back side on bottom has a rusty stain like ancient dried blood possibly was made for pulling fats & sinu off hides for tanning & being brass the edge can be hammered for resharpening ,It has a polished down look on narrow part for hand grip ,Ya posible Viking or Tribal bronze era animal on front might mean to use to make furs probably hand tool Nice Find.

[petronopulas]

search the mudcliffe face at low water on the Northern side of Warden Point. I found a prehistoric snail shell as big as a 1 gallon bucket. Used it as a door stop but left it when I emigrated to Aus.

[KentTecker]

Great find from warden been searching there myself for past year had nothing but pre-decimals from bottom of the cliffs.I agree that its a stirrup mount from 11th maybe 12th century.

[FortGuide]

Thank you for that identification, much appreciated.