New Late Roman buckle from Dorchester on Thames

[Caballo]

This magnificent late Roman buckle, found in the Dyke Hills , Dorchester on Thames, is of bronze with a strap end. It was found with a small francisca- possibly ceremonial. The find has not even been conserved yet. There are almost certainly more such graves in Dyke Hills- but they will await the farmers' permission to excavate which is unlikely at the moment.....

[markusaurelius]

Very nice buckle and belt, wonder why it is labelled Anglo-Saxon.....

[Vindex]

Fabulous detail on the buckle - thank you for posting.

One assumes the context of excavation has led to the label...

Lets hope they can keep the detectorists away from these sites!

[Robert Vermaat]

Very nice buckle. I also wonder why it's still labelled AS - it could be from any Germanic federate service in the Roman army, or indeed from any soldier.
I realise of course that it's labelled thus because for a very long time these buckles were seen as civilian, unrelated to any military function (a typical insular view, while on the continent any such buckles were seen as typically military). And of course after the Romans came the Anglo-Saxons..

Why would a small francisca be ceremonial? It could also have belonged to a child - in Cologne we have such a child's grave, with small items such as a helmet. Of course, one could see those items as ceremonial.

[Peroni]

Crikey! That's huge! In comparison to the other Dorchester find - which is also quite large.

[Caballo]

The francisca has a very flat top- it could have been used to split wood perhaps?? The symbolic interpretation came from the excavator.

The Anglo Saxon label alsoncomes from the room - which is 410 onwards...and as we all know, the Romans left in 410 AD leaving only Britons and Anglosaxons...
:roll:


So, a massive dragon head buckle, with another dragon head buckle already found nearby. This indicates that these soldiers originated from the Continent as does the chip carving- one of (I think) four found, all in Southern England.

The dragon head buckle to me begins to look like a unit id?

And dating to late 4th/ early 5th.

The dragon head buckle and tubular fittings have paralells with this find in Germany [attachment=1869]JuelicherFund-862x1024.jpg[/attachment]

And the Donderberg
grave

And the same combination of dragon head buckle and tubular fittings in the original Dyke Hills, Dorchester grave

[attachment=1868]20_2011-10-07.jpg[/attachment]

Are there any other parallel finds that could help unravel more about these very similar but geographically disparate graves?

Cheers

Caballo

[Peroni]

I seem to remember a find from the Netherlands of a similar type - It's shown in Nico Roymans' "Armed Batavians"

[Cheyenne]

I'm trying to understand where the number 12 item in the last illustration in this thread sits on the belt - can anyone elaborate

Cheers

[Caballo]

I interpreted it as a sword bead/ amulet- http://www.romanarmy.net/dorchester.htm it's a good question!

[Robert Vermaat]

The dragon head buckle to me begins to look like a unit id?
[..]
Are there any other parallel finds that could help unravel more about these very similar but geographically disparate graves?

You mean buckles and belts like these? Just about hundreds I think? These finds are very common in NW Europe (especially inside the Empire) during the period 375-425 I think. Nothing odd, really, mostly stuff probably issued by the army.

Unit ID? Not likely, just mass-produced stuff, more like.

[Cheyenne]

I thought it me a sword amulet - it doesn't have any other explanation I suppose... I'd like to know what the original was made from. I have some nice bone pieces that could be made into such an amulet with the dot and ring decoration...

Something for the next spatha methinks

[Caballo]

I've seen two sources on this- one says its made of bone, one of antler. So a bone one would be fine, I reckon.

[G.Pub.Britannicus]

Could it be Roman gear re-used (recycled) by an Anglo-Saxon & buried in an A-S cemetery with it's last owner?

[Caballo]

Hi Howard,

Well, it does seem as if it was a Saxon wearing it. How he got the buckle is open to conjecture- but others buried nearby also have typical late Roman buckles. So the options are that they were issued with the buckles as part of the Late Roman army, or obtained them in another way- given to them by the Dorchester Romano-Britons still living near by, stolen, recycled or some other reason.

Have a read here http://www.digdorchester.net/home.htm and hers http://www.romanarmy.net/dorchester.htm . Let me know what you think....I'm digging there next July!

[G.Pub.Britannicus]

Thank you for the quick reply. Perhaps the Roman Army abandoned a lot of equipment when they withdrew, or gave it to Romanized Britons. The Anglo-Saxons could have acquired it by any of several means.