Belt Fitting

Silver-gilt and gold buckle, plate and counterplate. The buckle is narrow and oval with a straight bar, that has recessed chip-carved panels on either side of a plain section under a tong tip, filled with competently done guilloche pattern, two strands interlacing to make four loops finishing with a loop at each end. The strands are grooved and the groove is filled with niello. At either end of the flanking bar are sub-rectangular panels bordered with nielloed grooves and filled with nielloed step-pattern pseudo-cloisons. The panels are not identical. Gilding appears on the chip carved parts, and the inner edge of the buckle where it slopes down at an angle. The tongue is plain, gilded with a flat garnet on gold foil recessed into a shield-shaped back. At the back the silver hook which once attached to the tongue is broken. The triangular plates have sloping gilded sides; the top edge is decorated with triangles nielloed to leave zig-zag of silver in reserve. There are swollen emplacements for dome-headed gilded rivets, large at foot, and smaller at the top corners, all encircled with beaded and gilded silver wire. The centre is recessed inside the sloping gilded edges of the frame. The decoration of the centre is of a repoussé pale gold sheet with beaded gold wire border and the zoomorphic filigree pattern based on the main outline is worked up in repoussé. The design is of a single ribbon animal whose loops are rendered in triple wires laid side by side, all beaded. There is a granule of gold, surrounded by beaded wire for the eye and a square-ish head frame with backswept piece joining down-curving neck. A single loop with an upswept tail may present continuation from the head frame. The animal has long open jaws, the upper interlacing with the lower and looping up around neck; the lower crossing under the neck and over the upper jaw and continuing down into the narrow part of the plate, making a single loop with a tail and continuing down to bottom of plate. This piece has been bungled here and there is a short strand projecting upwards and outwards from the junction of jaw and loop.
The attachment which secured the plate to the tongue was cast in one piece with the plate, tapering off, and cut to permit the tongue hook to pass through and function. It was originally bent over the bar of tongue and probably was riveted to the belt and tidied away behind a now missing sheet silver backplate. The back of the plate is hollow, but details are obscured by modern plaster. Only a rivet shank at the foot shows through.
The counterplate is similar except from the fact that it does not have a curved recess at the top to accommodate the back of the tongue. It is instread flat end with a broader curving inner face of extra single row of nielloed triangles along the top. Otherwise it is similar, except from some niello missing from the double row of triangles. One dome-head rivet is totally missing at the top side, and the foot one is missing its beaded collar. The filigree pattern is similar except at the narrow end where the jaw laps over one strand of X-loop - an extra strand continues down into the bottom of plate. The back is obscured by the plaster, but 2 rivet shanks show through at the top.

This was excavated by the Reverend Bryan Faussett from Grave 23 at Guilton