BUCKLE

A cast copper-alloy buckle frame with integral plate of Early-Medieval/Anglo-Saxon date. The buckle frame is oval shaped in form with slightly expanded outer edge and straightened bar. It is separated from the plate by a transverse groove that has a small circular perforation serving as pin slot at its centre. Iron corrosion at the centre of the frame and surrounding the pin hole indicate where the now missing pin would originally have hinged. The integrally cast plate is triangular in form, tapering towards the attachment end. It has moulded semi-circular projections to either side close to the frame, and at the narrowed attachment end has a circular terminal. Between the two semi-circular projections at the centre of the plate is a circular rivet hole containing a separately cast copper-alloy rivet with flattened circular head and incomplete rove on the back face. The back face of the plate has three additional integrally cast rivets, one positioned at the centre of the circular terminal and the other two behind the semi-circular projections. The entire object measures 8.89mm in width/height at frame, 20.19mm in length, 1.45mm in thickness at plate (3.14mm including rivets), and weighs 1.39g.

This buckle is similar in form to Marzinzik's Type II.23b-ii buckle frames (Marzinzik, 2003: pp. 50) as well as examples from Coddenham and Barham, Suffolk (West, 1998: nos. 4.20, 21.3). It is of Early-Medieval date, probably belonging in the 6th-7th centuries AD.