File:Early Medieval - Medieval buckle (FindID 262951).jpg

English: Medieval cast copper alloy single-loop buckle frame with attached but separately cast copper alloy buckle plate; the pin is missing. The frame is D-shaped in plan and has a narrowed and offset strap bar with lobed knops at each end. The sides widen from 2.5mm by the bar to 10.2mm at the centre. They are triangular and angled steeply downwards, at 45 degrees to the strap bar and plate but with a narrow flat top parallel to the plate. There is a pin notch in the centre of this flat section. On the sloping outer side is a line of three raised squares in slightly concave circular depressions which cover the width of the side; two of the raised squares are the same size and one of the end ones is smaller. The buckle frame measures 26.6mm long, 19.5mm wide and 8.3mm thick.

The buckle plate is formed of a piece of copper alloy sheet folded over the strap bar with a separate cast openwork plate riveted on the front. The sheet plate is rectangular, recessed at the front for the frame and with a rectangular pin slot, the back is the same length as the front (26.2mm) but slightly narrower (15.5mm compared to 17.8mm). The plate attached to the front has a rounded convex design, probably zoomorphic within a rectangular border, the details are worn and the design is complex with different flowing lines. It may be a wyvern or a lion. Careful removal of mud by the finder has shown that the front sheet behind the cast section has a white metal coating which would have shown through the openwork. The cast plate and front and back sheet plates and all attached together by four separate copper alloy rivets (6.9mm long) with domed heads which would have also gone through and attached the strap. The entire piece weighs 15.89 grams. The surface is dark red-brown with patches of green corrosion.

Several simpler openwork buckle plates in which the front plate is itself cast and openwork are recorded on the database, e.g. SUSS-3E04E1 and SUR-C27225. These are generally dated to the 12th century. Geoff Egan comments this example is of “the most elaborate form - and arguably the earliest.” A 11th to early 12th century date is suggested although a similar buckle frame attached to a plainer plate might be dated to the 12th-14th centuries.