File:Late Saxon ?buckle plate (FindID 94391).jpg

English: A copper-alloy strap fitting of late Saxon date. It consists of a flat, roughly lozenge-shaped plate with openwork decoration. The plate has four openwork lozenges, each outlined (not too neatly) with engraved lines. The plate is extended towards the bottom corner and cut off straight here, to accommodate a D-shaped hole just above the straight edge; the edge here is narrow, as if to act as a strap bar or hinge bar. Further engraved lines run down to the sides of this hole. There are nine bosses around the edge of the object, one at each of the five corners and one in the centre of each of the four sides. The engraved lines are slightly zig-zag, as if the engraver had to rock the tool slightly to force it through the metal. Both sides of the piece retain possible traces of gilding. The metal is dark brown in colour and is slightly pitted. The object measures 46.5mm long by 36mm wide and 3.1mm thick. It weighs 14.01g. The object is very similar in style to a Williams Class A, Type 12 stirrup-strap mount (Williams 1997, 70-5). These are also lozenge-shaped with four lozenge-shaped perforations, bosses and sometimes engraved decoration, but always have circular loops at the apex. The narrowed integral bar on this object appears unprecedented; it is not paralleled on the stirrup-strap mounts or on horse-harness pendants (e.g. DENO-D73301 or NLM-3CD626). Like the stirrup-strap mounts, however, it should date from the 11th century AD.