File:Cast gold buckle-plate or belt mount (FindID 859747).jpg

Part of a cast gold buckle-plate or belt mount, carrying a single recessed rectangular panel, which contains a bold design of two transitional Style I/Style II bird heads. The birds face each other across the top of the panel with their prominent curving beaks springing from a small and poorly defined head. Each eye is formed from a single small punch-mark. The necks are delineated by two raised bands that run parallel to the edges of the plate, turning the corner to end at the midpoint where they are separated from each other by a single slash. The surviving edge is pierced for three rivets. The fragment still shows signs of the casting process and is in pristine condition with no signs of wear. It may have been damaged during manufacturing.

Discussion:

This unusual fragment may be either part of a buckle plate whose tongue and loop have been torn away or part of a belt mount. A belt mount, of similar hollow construction and square in shape, rather than the rectangular norm, was found in grave A.38 in the cemetery of Mainz St Alban (G Zeller, Die Fränkischen Altertümer des Nördlichen Rheinhessen, Stuttgart 1992, GDR Band 15, Taf. 73, 17c,). Buckles of similar construction dating to the early sixth century have also been found at Untersiebenbrunn (L'Or des Princes Barbares, exhibition 9.22, p. 118) and Nydam (Les Barbares et la Mer, p. 50). The type is not however common in insular contexts.