File:Illustration of Roman buckle (FindID 84400).jpg

English: A complete late Roman - Early Medieval (4th - early 5th Century) copper alloy buckle and plate of Hawkes and Dunning Type 1B. The buckle has a pair of facing dolphins at the centre of the outer edge. Each has open jaws defined by two incised transverse lines and a ring-and-dot for the eye. A recess in the area between the jaws serves as the pin rest. Each dolphin has a horse extending from its crest and which look in the opposite direction to the dolphin. The horses are flat and set below the dolphins that are moulded. Each horse has a short line for the mouth, a short transverse line at the ear and the eye formed from two curving stamped lines that almost join. The mane is depicted by close-set transverse lines along its upper edge.

The upper surface is decorated with two lines of small circular stamps along the line of the neck, which continue as a single line around the lower edge of the horse at the junction with the dolphin and run up the chest of the horse and round to the head terminating before the nose. There are three transverse lines on the loop where the bodies of the horse begins - these lines continue on the inner edges on both sides, but only extend to the outer edge at this point on the right-hand side. The strap bar is circular in section.

The back of the buckle frame is flat and there are many closely set fine transverse scratches. The inner edge is bevelled as far as the dolphin's head on each side of the loop. The copper alloy pin is intact - it has a square section and where it sits within the recess of the buckle plate it is decorated with two incised lines which extend as far as the fold of the plate. The buckle has a very even dark brown smooth patina. The buckle frame is 23mm in width, 20.33mm in length (when including the horse's heads it is 23.25mm in length) and is 2.9-3.45mm in thickness.

The complete copper alloy rectangular buckle plate has two sides of even size. It is recessed for the buckle frame and has a slot for the pin. The plate is 17.14mm wide at the attachment with the frame. There are three rivet holes in each corner opposite the frame and another following the central line of the plate from the pin and located 13.4mm from the pin slot. Two copper alloy rivets are intact; they are burred over on the reverse and have flat circular heads on the front. The rivets are 5.37mm long, the shaft is 2.25mm in diameter and the head is 3.4mm. The plate is decorated on the front with double parallel lines of small circular stamps (probably the same stamp as that used for the decoration on the horse's heads) close to the edge on both long sides and the short side opposite the pin.

Each of the long sides then has a line of curved crescentic closely-set, but not joining stamps with a small circular stamp between each stamp, with the curve facing outwards. Very fine lines are visible on the line of the stamped decoration, which must have served as guidelines. There is a further line of stamped circles running at the median point of the plate and extending from the pin slot and meeting at right angles to the stamped line running down the short side of the plate. On either side of this line is a line of flat 'S'-shaped stamps (these motifs run in opposite directions to each other).

The patina of the plate is missing in a diagonal line at roughly the centre of the plate towards the frame; otherwise it is an even and smooth mid-brown. The back plate is bent in two areas and the patina is missing in corresponding areas; at these points the original colour of the metal is visible. The plate is 56.28mm in length and 22.85 in width. The thickness of the plates is 0.67-0.71mm. It weighs 20.05g. The rivet hole with the missing rivet is cracked to the outer edge, as is the opposing corner rivet hole with the rivet still intact. Although there is a very short area that is missing on the outer edge (c.9.5mm), the buckle and plate are in an excellent condition. Fragments of similar buckle frames are occasionally found but it is extremely unusual for a complete buckle frame, pin and plate to survive as a whole.