MEDIEVAL BUCKLE

1100

Unusually constructed buckle plate. Basically rectangular, it is made from one piece of copper-alloy sheet folded in half with an incurve cut into the folded end and then a pin slot cut into the centre of the incurve. There are no frame recesses. Two outer plates are then riveted onto the folded plate with two large, clumsy copper-alloy rivets, one very close to the pin slot. One of these extra outer plates is then folded back in half and neatly ends at the start of the hinge loops, with two neat small circular rivet holes here. The other extra outer plate is bent and broken at the end of the inner plates. It would appear that it too had been folded in half, were it not for the faint line of rocker-arm engraving down either edge. The whole thing measures 20 x 16 mm. Possibly a rectangular buckle plate broke and had two extra plates riveted on, one subsequently being broken off and the other bent in half; but the two putative 'broken' edges in fact look neatly cut.