Torrs Pony-cap and Horns

The Torrs Horns and Torrs Pony-cap (once together known as the "Torrs Chamfrein") are Iron Age bronze pieces now in the Museum of Scotland, which were found together, but whose relationship is one of many questions about these "famous and controversial" objects that continue to be debated by scholars. Most scholars agree that horns were added to the pony-cap at a later date, but whether they were originally made for this purpose is unclear; one theory sees them as mounts for drinking-horns, either totally or initially unconnected to the cap. The three pieces are decorated in a late stage of La Tène style, as Iron Age Celtic art is called by archaeologists. The dates ascribed to the elements vary, but are typically around the 2nd century BC; it is generally agreed that the horns are somewhat later than the cap, and in a rather different style.^[1]

Modern history

The artefacts were found together, but with the horns detached from the cap, "about 1820" and "before 1829",^[2] in a peat bog at Torrs Farm, Kelton, Kirkcudbright, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, the context suggesting they were a votive deposit. They were given by the local exciseman to the novelist Sir Walter Scott, and long displayed at Abbotsford House, which was opened for public visits from 1833, soon after Scott's death.^[3] The horns are currently displayed fixed onto the cap, pointing backwards, but were for long displayed mounted pointing forwards,^[4] and have also been displayed detached from the horns.^[5]

Description

The cap is decorated in repoussé with vegetal motifs, trumpet-spirals and bird heads, while the horns have engraved decoration including a human face and one terminates in a modelled bird head; it has been suggested that this represents specifically the head of a Northern Shoveller duck.^[6] This probably originally had coral eyes; the other horn lacks its tip.^[7] The cap has holes for the ears of the pony;^[8] the angle at which the cap is currently displayed, as in the photo here, is designed to show the decoration clearly, and corresponds to that the cap would have had with the horse bowing its head. The photos on the museum website show the normal angle when worn better, with the edges on the sides roughly parallel with the ground.^[9]

The engraved decoration on the horns is described by Lloyd Laing as "very neatly incised and very elaborate; each pattern begins with a circular yin-yang element and swells outwards into a central design before tailing off into a delicate fan-shaped tip. A tiny full-face human mask has been incorporated into the central element of the larger horn."^[10] The pony-cap is 10.5 inches long, and the complete horn 16.5 inches along its curve,^[11] meaning that the horse wearing the cap "would have had to be a very small one".^[12]

Artistic context

The horns and cap are part of a small group of elaborately decorated objects that are the main evidence for one of the last phases of "Insular" La Tene style in Britain and Ireland, known as "Style IV" in an extension of the scheme originally devised by de Navarro for Continental works. Other objects include the Battersea and Witham Shields, and an especially closely related work is a bronze boss found in the river Thames at Wandsworth in London; all these three objects are in the British Museum. The group includes other objects from Britain and Ireland.^[13]

In a Scottish context, the cap has been seen as a leading example of a distinctive "Galloway style" of La Tene art, closely related to developments in northern Ireland, a short distance across the North Sea.^[14] Other scholars see the pieces as imported products, perhaps from "east-central England".^[15]

Function

The pony-cap is normally seen as a Celtic example of a champron or chamfrein, a piece of horse armour of the type familiar from the late Middle Ages, but has also been seen as intended to be worn by a human in ritual contexts.^[16] This was in fact also the belief of local antiquaries when the object was found; in its first publication in 1841 it was described as "a mummer's head-mask", though thought to be medieval.^[17] It would have been held on by leather straps, with a plume rising from the top of the cap.^[18] No other metal champron from ancient times is known, but there appear to be Celtic and ancient Greek examples in materials such as boiled leather. Another possibility is that the intended wearer was a wooden cult statue of a horse, which would help explain the small size.^[19]

The theory that the horns were drinking-horn mounts, never joined to the cap in ancient times, was first proposed by Professors Piggott and Atkinson in 1955, and was widely accepted for about three decades, leading to the horns being detached from the cap and displayed separately. However the theory depended on the assumption that the holes and rivets used to attach the horns to the cap were all the work of a 19th century restorer. Subsequent investigation suggested that this was not in fact the case, and "opinion has swung back" to support the original reconstruction,^[20] and by the late 1960s Piggott and Atkinson preferred "to think of the horns as yoke-terminals" for chariots.^[21] The possibility remains that the horns were made for a different function, but later attached to the cap at some time before its deposit.

Though no actual comparable finds have been made, some parallels have been suggested in representations of similar caps, including a figure of the mythical horse Pegasus on a coin of Tasciovanus, the largely Romanized chief who ruled the Catuvellauni from Verlamion (St Albans) between about 20 BC and 9 AD, and was the father of Cymbeline. The Pegasus appears to wear a cap from which rise two knobbed horns.^[22]

Notes

^ Laings, 102; Horns of bronze, Museum of Scotland database, accessed 27 June 2011; Sandars, 260-261; Hennig (1995), 18 ("famous and controversial")
^ quotes respectively from Smith, 334 and the RCAHMS website (with map and bibliography but otherwise outdated, sticking to Piggot and Atkinson)
^ Laings, 102; Horns of bronze, Museum of Scotland database, accessed 27 June 2011; Smith, 334
^ See Sandars, Plate 286
^ Laing, 31. Apparently they were so displayed around 1979
^ Laing, 70; also Pigott and Atkinson in Further reading.
^ Museum of Scotland, Horns page
^ Laings, 102
^ Pony cap of bronze and from the other side, Museum of Scotland database, accessed 27 June 2011
^ Laing, 70
^ Smith, 337, who measures many other dimensions
^ Henig (1995), 18
^ Laings, 100-107; Sandars, 260-268 (using a different classification scheme for the styles).
^ Kilbride-Jones, 73-76
^ [1]; see also [2]
^ Green, 135, citing the recent authority of Prof. Martin Jope's article (see Further reading). Archaeologists tend to use the archaic synonym "chamfrein", following the ancient tradition of their tribe since Smith.
^ Smith, 334-335
^ Pony cap of bronze, Museum of Scotland database, accessed 27 June 2011 (with a better view of the engraving)
^ Henig (1995), 18
^ Henig (1995), 18
^ Henig (1974), 374; see also the Museum of Scotland web site
^ Henig (1974), 374

References

Green, Miranda. Animals in Celtic Life and Myth, 1998, Routledge, ISBN 0415185882, 9780415185882
Henig, Martin (1974). "A Coin of Tasciovanus", Britannia, Vol. 5, 1974, 374-375, JSTOR
Henig, Martin (1995). The Art of Roman Britain, Routledge, 1995, ISBN 0415151368, 9780415151368, JSTOR
Kilbride-Jones, H. E., Celtic craftsmanship in bronze, 1980, Taylor & Francis, ISBN 0709903871, 9780709903871
"Laings", Lloyd Laing and Jennifer Laing. Art of the Celts: From 700 BC to the Celtic Revival, 1992, Thames & Hudson (World of Art), ISBN 0500202567
Laing, Lloyd Robert. Celtic Britain, 1979, Taylor & Francis, ISBN 0710001312, 9780710001313
Sandars, Nancy K., Prehistoric Art in Europe, Penguin (Pelican, now Yale, History of Art), 1968 (nb 1st edn.)
Smith, John Alexander, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Volume 7, December 1867, 334-341, Printed for the Society by Neill and Company, 1870, google books