File:Early medieval bucket handle mount fragment (FindID 161199).jpg

English: A copper-alloy terminal from an Anglo-Saxon bucket bifurcated handle mount, the rest of the mount is missing due to an old break. The bucket would have been wooden and had a supporting framework of copper-alloy and perhaps iron. Such buckets are found in furnished burials dating from AD 400-700. Jean Cook (2004, 32, fig 1) states that "Handle mounts provide the means for suspension of the handle for those vessels where the uprights are not extended above the rim. They are often the most elaborate components amongst the vessel mounts and may contribute significantly to the decoration of the vessel."

The mount is probably cast and one curvilinear terminal of it now survives, when complete the mount would have been bifurcated with a central vertical shaft which split into two lower curvilinear terminals, each with a zoomorphic tip. The surviving curvilinear terminal measures 30.82mm in length and 36.27mm in total width and is 1.25mm in thickness, the curvilinear shaft itself tapers from 11.84mm in width to 1.99mm in width. It is flat and the front face has a faceted outer edge. Along the inner edge there is a row of small punched annulets. The tip of the terminal tapers to a point and this is depicted as the stylised beak of a bird. This bird has a large incised pointed oval shaped eye and above and behind the eye there is a rectangular moulding. Behind this there is a circular hole, presumably a rivet hole to attach the terminal to the wooden bucket.

This bifurcated handle mount is similar to complete examples found elsewhere, for example on complete buckets found in grave 5 Girton, Cambs (Cook 2004 115, fig 13, a), and Grave 81, Little Wilbraham, Cambs, (Cook 2004, 111, fig 9, d). The style of the terminals is perhaps most similar to one from West Stow heath, Suffolk, which has finials of birds heads with curving tapering beaks of style 1 (Cook 2004, 115, fig 13, b, 243).