FREE THE FRANKS CASKET PDF Leslie Webster | 64 pages | 07 Jan 2013 | BRITISH MUSEUM PRESS | 9780714128184 | English | London, United Kingdom Franks Casket - Overview We use cookies to make our website work more efficiently, to provide you with more personalised services or advertising to you, and to analyse traffic on our website. For more information on how we use cookies and how to manage The Franks Casket, please follow the 'Read more' link, otherwise select 'Accept and close'. Skip to main content Please enable JavaScript in your web browser to get the best experience. Read more about our cookie policy Accept and close the cookie policy. Museum numberDescription Lidded rectangular box made of whale-bone, carved on the sides and top in relief with scenes from Roman, Jewish, Christian and Germanic tradition. The base is constructed from four sides slotted and pegged into corner uprights, the bottom plates fitted into grooves at the base of the sides. It possibly stood on four low feet. Only one decorative panel now survives in the lid, the remaining elements being almost The Franks Casket replacements. There are scars left by lost metal fittings on the exterior - handle, lock, hasps and hinges - and crude internal repairs. The five surviving decorated panels are variously accompanied by carved texts in Old English and Latin, using both conventional and encoded runes as well as Insular script, in a variety of orientations. Each side is bordered by a long descriptive text and The Franks Casket contain additional The Franks Casket the lid The Franks Casket has The Franks Casket the latter, though a longer text may originally have accompanied it. The main inscription takes the form of a riddling alliterative verse about the casket's origin. The Franks Casket left-hand end depicts Romulus and Remus nurtured by the wolf with an inscription describing the scene. The main inscription is in a mixture of Old English, Latin, runes and insular script. The right-hand end poses special problems of interpretation. The apparently episodic scene is evidently from Germanic legend but has The Franks Casket been satisfactorily identified. The main runic text is in alliterative verse partly encoded by substituting cryptic forms for most of its vowels and perhaps certain other letters. Production date 8thC early. Materials whalebone. Technique carved. Dimensions Height: Curator's comments Published and mentioned: Karkov, C. In: Frojmovic, E. Abingdon: Oxford, pp. Paz, J. Almost everything about this perplexing and ostentatiously erudite object is enigmatic, including its history. It was first recorded in the possession of a family at Auzon in the Auvergne, during which time it was dismantled. The right-hand end became separated from the rest around this time, and passed eventually into the Museo Nazionale del Bargello in Florence, where it remains. A replica of this is mounted on the original The Franks Casket. The other panels were bought from a Paris The Franks Casket and presented to the British Museum by the collector and curator Augustus Franks, whose name it bears. Its history prior to its surfacing in Auzon is unknown, The Franks Casket one second-hand account suggests that it came from the nearby church and cult-centre of St Julian at Brioude, from which it could have been looted at the Revolution. How and when the casket came to France can only ever be a matter for speculation, though Wood has managed to identify one early medieval candidate who in theory could have taken it from the north of England to Brioude - the Frankish scholar Frithegod who was active in both areas in the middle tenth century Wood Still more speculative is the question of where and why it was made. The language of The Franks Casket inscription shows that the carver used a Northumbrian or north Mercian dialect current in the early eighth century. The style of decoration, with its many details recalling Northumbrian manuscript art of the first half of the eighth century, accords with this Webster b, A Northumbrian origin is thus probable, though since even monastic craftsmen may be mobile not strictly necessary. The Casket's heady mix of Roman Christian, Jewish and Germanic traditions certainly reflects an interest in cosmography recorded in seventh- to eighth-century Northumbrian aristocratic and monastic circles e. Wood8, fn. The casket's programme, in so far as we understand it, is however not merely a parade of learning and of epigraphic virtuosity. The Adoration of the The Franks Casket, for example is The Franks Casket with The Franks Casket Weland legend, in which the birth of a hero also makes good sin and suffering, while the adjacent sides symbolising the founding of Rome and destruction of Jerusalem draw an obvious contrast. However, while the Germanic scenes on the lid and right-hand side remain opaque to analysis, it The Franks Casket impossible to say whether the device of parallelism underlies the Casket's entire iconographic programme. Nevertheless, the access to the Early Christian models evident in the use of parallels is matched in the Casket's form and design. This is manifestly based - possibly at some remove - on an Early Christian reliquary similar to the Brescia casket, which itself shares with the Franks Casket both a programme which makes notable use of parallels and a remarkably similar layout of central scenes bordered by there iconic commentaries. No doubt prestigious potential The Franks Casket of this kind reached Northumbria either through direct contacts with Rome of the kind regularly made by such as Benedict Biscop, Ceolfrid and Wilfrid, or, as Wood has argued, via contacts with Frankish Gaul. The heady impact on Anglo- Saxon culture and Christianity and with it the world of antiquity is nowhere more strikingly seen than in this extraordinary object. Select bibliography: Napier, A. Farrell ed. Condition There are scars left by lost metal fittings on The Franks Casket exterior - handle, lock, hasps and hinges - and crude internal repairs reflect a chequered history see curatorial comment. Associated places Topographic representation of: Jerusalem. Acquisition date Acquisition notes Bought in Auzon. Department Britain, Europe and Prehistory. Registration number , The Franks Casket - Treasures of Heaven The Franks Casket or the The Franks Casket Casket is a small Anglo-Saxon whale's bone not "whalebone" in the sense of baleen chest from the early 8th century, now in the British Museum. The casket is densely decorated with knife-cut narrative scenes in flat two-dimensional low- relief and with inscriptions mostly The Franks Casket Anglo-Saxon runes. Generally reckoned to be of Northumbrian origin, [1] it is of unique importance for the insight it gives into early Anglo-Saxon art and culture. Both identifying the images and interpreting the runic inscriptions has generated a considerable amount of scholarship. The imagery is very diverse in its subject matter and derivations, and includes a single Christian image, the Adoration of the Magialong with images derived from Roman history Emperor Titus and Roman mythology Romulus and Remusas well as a depiction of at least one legend indigenous to the Germanic peoples : that of Weyland the Smith. It has also been suggested that there may be an episode from the Sigurd legend, an otherwise lost episode from the life of Weyland's brother Egila Homeric legend involving The Franks Casketand perhaps even an allusion to the legendary founding of England by Hengist and Horsa. The inscriptions "display a deliberate linguistic and alphabetic virtuosity; though they are mostly written in Old English and in runes, they shift into Latin and the Roman alphabet; then back into runes while The Franks Casket writing Latin". A monastic origin is generally accepted for the casket, which was perhaps made for presentation to an important secular figure, and Wilfrid 's foundation at Ripon has been specifically suggested. Weale revealed that the casket The Franks Casket belonged to the church of Saint-Julien, Brioude The Franks Casket Haute Loire upper Loire regionFrance; it is possible that it was looted during the French Revolution. It served as a sewing box until the silver hinges and fittings joining the panels were traded for a silver ring. Without the support of these the casket fell apart. The parts were shown to a Professor Mathieu from nearby Clermont-Ferrandwho sold them to an antique shop in Pariswhere they were bought in by Sir Augustus Wollaston Frankswho subsequently donated the panels in to the British Museum, where he was Keeper of the British and Medieval collections. The missing right end panel was later found in a drawer by the family in Auzon and sold to the Bargello MuseumFlorencewhere it was identified as part of the casket in The British Museum display includes a cast of it. The casket is The mounts in precious metal that were undoubtedly originally present are missing, and it is "likely" that it was originally painted in colour. Leslie Webster regards the casket as probably originating in a monastic context, where the maker "clearly possessed great learning and ingenuity, to construct an object which is so visually and intellectually complex. What used to be seen as an eccentric, almost random, assemblage of pagan Germanic and Christian stories is now understood as a sophisticated programme perfectly in accord with the Church's concept of universal history". It may have been intended to hold a book, perhaps a psalterand intended to be presented to a "secular, probably royal, recipient" [12]. The front panel, which originally had a lock fitted, depicts elements from the Germanic legend of Wayland the Smith in the left-hand scene, and the Adoration of the Magi on the right. Another female figure is shown in the centre; perhaps Wayland's helper, or Beaduhild again.