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Description: | A complete cast copper-alloy Late Roman buckle, c. 4th-c. 5th century AD. Hawkes and Dunning Type IIIB. The buckle consists of a D-shaped buckle loop with a trapezoidal integrally-cast plate on the outer face, a small plate on the reverse, two rivets and a pin, all of which are made of copper alloy. The D-shaped buckle loop has bevelled outer and inner edges and has incised decoration of two stylised dolphin heads from the side profile, with an eye, jaws and v-shaped delineation between head and body for each; a further line runs from top to the bottom of the jaws. The reverse surface of the buckle loop has been filed to smooth and flatten the surface but no further decoration is visible. The buckle plate has two parts: the first is trapezoidal in shape and has elaborate incised decoration on the outer surface and a circular hole for the pin, through which the pin is wrapped; the second part consists of a small narrow sub-rectangular plate on the reverse, which is undecorated and would have been used to create the necessary tension to fix a leather belt strap to the buckle. Both plates are fixed together by means of two circular copper alloy rivets near the outer edges of the buckle plate. The decoration of the buckle plate matches that of the loop in that it consists of incised and stamped decoration. Two incised lines with internal vertical hashing follow the three outer perimeter edges; inside of this decoration, half circles of a stamped ring-and-dot design follow two each on the shorter edges and four on the largest outer edge. In contrast to the effort used to create the buckle and plate, the pin is relatively rudimentary and created from a copper alloy sheet and simply wrapped around the pin hole. It is possible that this pin was added later when the original pin had broken and it seems that the alloy composition used was different from the rest of the buckle. The buckle and frame components all have an even dark green patina, but the rivets are of a slightly different green colour and the pin has differential corrosion on the surface and no real patina. It is in excellent condition with only slight surface damage on the outer surface and all components intact.The buckle measures a total of 27.55 mm long; with a maximum width of 30.81 mm at the buckle loop and 23.89 mm wide at the buckle plate end and maximum thickness of 3.41 at the buckle plate end; the reverse buckle plate measures 21.85 mm long by 6.12 mm wide and 0.62 mm thick; the pin measures 16.66 mm long. The buckle weighs 6.91 grams. Cf. Hawkes, S C and Dunning G, 1961. 'Soldiers and Settlers in Britain, 4th-5th Century', Medieval Archaeology 5, 1-70, esp. Fig. 20.
Original Image | Publisher: | http://finds.org.uk | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Identifier: | http://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/r... | Go to resource |
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