MEDIEVAL BUCKLE

1350

An incomplete cast copper-alloy medieval 'locking buckle'. The frame is rectangular in plan, with rounded corners. The frame has been drilled for the pin bar, to which there would have been a U-shaped arm attached; this is now missing. It also features a central transverse groove in which the pin would have rested but the surviving pin has lost its tip. Beyond the groove the outer edge is rabbeted to take the missing arm. The frame is thinned at the other end.As implied, the pin bar survives in situ with the 'pin-chape' surviving around it in its entirety. The latter is formed of an integrally cast rectangular element, pierced all the way through for the pin bar, with protruding and tapering triangular pin. The object is now dark red/brown in colour. A similar object can be found on this database, ref. HAMP-1E6A51. Complete 'locking buckles' can be found illustrated in Ward Perkins (1940, opp. 273; Plate XXXVII), with a reconstruction drawing in Egan 2005 (37-38; refs. 116, 117).