File:Early medieval, Unidentified mount (FindID 741418).jpg

English: An early medieval alloy fitting comprising an oval frame on the end of an integral decorated rectangular plate. The fitting has two centrally-projecting broken attachments on the back. The frame is infilled with two bands of pellets which come together in scrolling terminals - which are probably bird heads. There are four side projections; two on each side of the slightly tapering plate near the frame. On the plate itself, within a field of enamel now brown in colour, is a human face formed from separate elements, while below the face are other elements less distinct.

Leslie Webster kindly comments:

I don't know of any exact parallels for ithis object or for its decoration. If, as it seems, it represents a full-scale human figure, one obviously thinks of the Finglesham and Great Ayton buckles with male figures, though these are of course larger, and only approximately similar (Blackwell, Med Arch 51, 165-117). Continental analogues include the early seventh-century buckle from Aker, Norway (which also has a loop with opposed bird heads). But, of course, the closest parallels for the figure, with its elongated face and its opposing diagonal shocks of hair and moustaches, lie among the increasing number of small copper alloy mounts in the form of human heads, usually with head-gear with horns terminating in bird-heads, such as those from Rempstone, Notts., (Tweddle, York Helmet publication, fig.558) and Letheringsett, Norfolk, NMS-559. I would certainly read the bird-headed loop on the present mount as representing such a headdress. All of these are datable to the first half of the 7th century, indicating a similar date for this fitting.

The apparent enamel inlay is exceptional however; though there is occasional (and very restricted) use of enamel on a few 6th century A-S object types, I can't off the top of my head think of another example as elaborate as this, or as late. The nearest thing that comes to mind is the rather coarse enamelled decoration on animal and interlace appliqués on the Lullingstone hanging bowl, which must be quite close in date, but was probably made in a very different cultural milieu.

The precise function must remain uncertain. For what it's worth, a lot of the human head artefacts seem to have been riveted to something, probably leather, looking at the length of the attachments. The Streatley mount is also small in scale (I thought at first it was the size of a belt buckle till I looked at the scale again!); it could also have been mounted on leather, the pierced lugs on its underside resembling those on some buckle plates. So it might come from a strap or harness of some kind, though I wouldn't rule it out as a box fitting.