File:Early-Medieval-Anglo-Saxon Buckle (FindID 249391).jpg

English: An incomplete cast copper alloy buckle plate of Early-Medieval/Anglo-Saxon date. Approximately one third of the plate is missing due to old breaks, as well as the buckle frame and pin. The plate is sub-oval or D-shaped in plan with a hollow back and integral projecting arms for attachment of the frame. The front face of the plate is flat and undecorated. Close to the frame end of the plate are two circular rivets that perforate the plate but are missing their heads due to old breaks. A similar third, but now missing, rivet is suggested by a small perforation that is partially preserved in the break at the centre of the attachment end. The two integral lugs are rectangular in form, of slightly differing size, and fold over to accomodate the now missing frame. Between them is a sub-rectangular pin slot. The back face of the plate is undecorated, flat and hollow, creating the impression of relatively thick 'walls' running around the entire outside edge of plate. The remains of both rivets are visible on the interior of the plate, one terminates in old breaks while the other still preserves a small sub-circular copper alloy rowel. The entire object appears to have no trace of any additional decoration, but has a green patina with traces of corrosion in places, particularly along the bottom edges and on the rivets. It measures 33.27mm in surviving height/length, 24.83mm in surviving width, 5.30mm in thickness (including 'walls' and hollow back), and weighs 9.84g. This is a hollow backed buckle plate of Early-Medieval or Anglo-Saxon date. It shares some similarities with Marzinzik's Type II.11a in terms of form and in the presence of an undecorated plate (Marzinzik, 2003: pp. 40, 307, Fig. 1). Plausibly the incomplete rivets on the exterior plate may have had larger heads, which, when the entire plate was originally cast and polished, may have produced a buckle resembling examples in other more precious metals. This buckle plate would probably have been attached to the strap by means of more substantial lugs or rivets as is noted on brooches of similar manufacture from Suffolk (see for example West, 1998: nos. 67.7-8). Similar buckle plates to this example are noted on the PAS database from Lincolnshire (LIN-E47E27) and Kent (KENT-40A632). These all indicate that the current buckle plate should date to the period of the 6th or 7th centuries, or perhaps c. 450-700 AD.