Treasure Annual Report 1998-1999 - Portable Antiquities Scheme

(fig. 61) Littlebourne
61 Littlebourne, Kent: Silver-gilt buckle with
triangular plate
(Fig. 61)
Date: First half of the 7th century
Finder: Mr R H Riley
Date of discovery: December 1998
Circumstances of discovery: While searching with a
metal-detector.
Description: Silver-gilt buckle with a triangular plate,
recently broken in two pieces. The oval loop, of Dshaped
section, is cast in one with the plate. It has a
false shield-on-tongue composed of two stepped,
crescentic panels, each decorated with a band of
interlace now obscured by corrosion. The base of the
tongue is an elongated oval, the tip is now missing. At
the junction of the loop and plate, on each side of the
narrow flange bordering the latter, is a garnet-inlaid
collared boss with a beaded rim. One of the garnets is a
cabochon, the other is flat-cut and was presumably a
replacement in antiquity. These bosses are purely
decorative, unlike those found at the end of the
transverse pin which secures the loop to the plate on
other surviving examples where the loop is actually
hinged. The plate originally had three domed rivets.
The lateral pair nearest the loop are now missing; the
large basal rivet has a beaded wire collar. There is a
Treasure Annual Report 1998 - 1999 35
Early Medieval Artefacts
narrow band of Style II zoomorphic interlace along
each side of the plate flanking a central panel containing
incised ornament obscured by corrosion. All that is
currently visible is a V-shaped element immediately
above the basal rivet. This may be the tail of a fish.
The plate is hollow, and part of the flanged edge
is broken away. On the back, immediately below the
loop is a rectangular panel, also gilt, now cracked and
damaged, engraved with a Style II animal. The
remains of two rivet shanks are visible; the third is
now missing. These would have secured a separate
sheet metal back-plate, now lost.
Dimensions and metal content: Length of plate:
91mm; width of loop: 28 mm; weight: 49.08g; metal
analysis: 94 per cent silver.
Discussion: This piece belongs to a well documented
group of early Anglo-Saxon triangular buckles found in
high status male graves of the first half of the 7th century
(G Speake, Anglo-Saxon Animal Art (Oxford, 1980), pp.
54–8, pls 5–7; V Evison, An Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Alton,
Hampshire (Hampshire Field Club monograph no. 4,
(1988), pp. 18–20 and 51). The finest example, of gold, is
from Taplow in Buckinghamshire, but the remainder are
silver-gilt, often inlaid with garnets and inset with foil
plates capped by zoomorphic Style II filigree. The
majority are from the richly furnished cemeteries of East
Kent such as Faversham, Sarre and Gilton. The
Littlebourne example, which is decorated with incised
ornament, is essentially a slightly cheaper version of one
of these buckles, and similar copper-alloy imitations are
known from other Kentish cemeteries such as Faversham
(G Speake op. cit., pl. 8). Stylistically it is closest to the
example from Crundale (J Backhouse and L Webster
(eds), The Making of England: Anglo-Saxon Art and Culture
AD 600–900 (London, 1991), pp. 24–5) which also has a
stepped shield-on-tongue, narrow bands of interlace and
a rectangular panel on the back with the scratched
rendering of a backward-gazing, body-biting animal. It
shares the same hollow construction, which has led some
writers to describe the Crundale buckle as a reliquary
buckle. The Crundale buckle also has a fish on the plate,
an early symbol of Christianity and on both these buckles