File:Early-medieval silver buckle (FindID 586806).jpg

English: Description: An unusual complete silver buckle with Trewhiddle-style decoration made from five different components all of which appear to be made from the same metal. It has an elongated D-shaped frame, with a sub-rectangular cross-section decorated with four bands of short transverse grooves on the upper face; there is also a grooved pin rest in the centre of the outer edge. The terminals of the frame are flattened ovals with circular holes through them, through which a silver cylindrical bar runs. One terminal of this bar has a domed head and the other is merely burred over, giving the bar the appearance of a long rivet. The silver pin is attached to this bar via an open loop; the pin is rectangular in cross-section and is decorated at either end of its upper face with a pair of transverse grooves. The tip tapers to a gentle point and curves downwards slightly over the outer edge of the frame.

The folded silver sheet plate tapers to a rounded end which is secured by a single silver rivet with a domed head through the centre. The other end of this rivet is also slightly domed. The plate is folded in half around the bar, and has a rectangular pin slot cut neatly into the fold. The upper face of the plate is decorated with V-shaped nicks or indentations around its edges, with a border groove running along the inside edge of these; within the border is a central panel with a design reserved against a background of niello. The design is a Trewhiddle-style animal in profile, facing right towards the frame but with its head turned back to look over its body towards the rivet. One two-toed hind leg is clear, then a rounded body with a V-shaped nick cut into the top of the rump. The rest of the body is less clear, due partly to a crack across the upper plate, but appears to be a narrowed downward-curving chest with further V-shaped nicks, then a neck ending in the backward-turning head.

Dimensions: 29.54mm in total length, 14.14mm in maximum width, 3.61g in weight.

Discussion: There are two badly made and poorly preserved artefacts recorded on the PAS database as buckle plates that may possibly have originally borne Trewhiddle-style decoration (YORYM-D10457 and WMAS-D24A31). Apart from this, there appear to be few buckles with comparable decoration; even the buckle in the Trewhiddle hoard itself (a slightly larger D-shaped buckle frame with folded sheet plate) bore no decoration.

Date: The Trewhiddle-style decoration dates this buckle broadly to the 9th century AD.