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Description: | A gilt chip-carved ovate frame from a buckle, probably of the sixth century, with detailed Style I animal-ornament chip-carved upon the surface. This is part of a high-quality composite object reflecting the exceptional status of the Sutton area during that period, and gives us an insight into the art current at Sutton before the high point represented by the famous ship-burial jewellery.
The buckle frame is 35mm long by 21mm wide by 7mm high or thick. It is a long oval casting with a central slot 15mm long by 5mm wide to admit the strap. On the fore-edge of the frame, a deep unornamented channel is created by two parallel bars or raised mouldings, 3mm broad and 10mm long. This moulding continues at either end in a semicircular arc around the inner slot of the frame, and then descends towards the outer edge on the trailing side of the frame. On the fore-edge these mouldings are 4mm apart, but on the trailing edge they aredistanced 9mm, and mark the terminals of the thick body of the frame. Between them the space in the casting is bridged only by a bar of rounded proportions (an integral part of the casting), which is a flattened 4mm gauge. This is the bar on which the (lost) buckle-pin pivoted, the tip of which fell in the channel between the mouldings across the fore-edge. The upper surface of the mouldings is decorated with a trail of gold or gilt in reticulated lines, like a string of lozenges, against an outer background or surface of silver or tinning. The two rounded ends of the frame, which slope away from the mouldings towards the outer edge, are richly textured and decorated with chip-carved animal ornament in Bernhard Salin's Scandinavian Style I ornament. The ornament of the two panels is similar and the arrangement of one mirrors that of the other. The various zoomorphic elements are contained within an inner panel-edge moulding which is cabled. Close to the central fore-edge slot for the tip of the pin, a single saluting foreleg with angled elbow faces towards the slot. Behind this is an angled bar with a second leg beneath it. At either end is an animal face enclosing a large single eye. An additional leg then occupies the end of the panel at the back of the frame nearest the pin-bar.
The whole form of the frame is as a wide-flan oval shaped like an elongated dome with the slot along its apex. Gilding is particularly visible on the upper side around the chip-carving and in contrast to the silvering on the mouldings. There is none visible in the slot for the pin-tip or on the pin-bar. The underside of the frame, which is dished or hollowed, is quite plain. The edges of the object are irregularly indented owing to corrosion.
It seems probable that the frame is part of a composite buckle which would have included a buckle-plate and pin as two other separate members. The Style I ornament is quite closely comparable to the belt or strap fittings like the square gilt panel recorded from Hacheston. These objects represent high-status personal ornament as worn during the middle years of the 6th century in the Deben valley area.
This an extremely interesting and unusual object which ought to find a home in a public Museum collection if at all possible. All materials of this kind from Sutton add to our understanding of that pre-eminently important site.
The buckle may be compared to one from Beauchamwell, Norfolk, see Treasure Annual Report 2001 no 69. | Format: | text/html | License: | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ | Publisher: | The Portable Antiquities Scheme | Rights holder: | The Portable Antiquities Scheme | Subjects: | archaeology | Temporal: | 525
575 | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Identifier: | http://www.finds.org.uk/database/artefac... | Language: | en-GB | Format: | text/html | Go to resource |
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