Roman Eagle belt plate

[Crispvs]

Ralph,

I think the deposit you are referring to was that of a sword and belt found under a barracks floor at Vindonissa seven or eight years ago. The sword was a Mainz type and is the latest example of the type which I am aware of. There were five belt plates, these being the the four standard type 'B' figural motifs and an interesting one (parallelled by others from the same site). The 'wolf and twins' plate and 'emperor and cornucopiae' plate are complete and are rather square, lacking the usual tubes at either side. The 'chasing animals plate is incomplete but appears to have been round (round belt plates are illustrated on a number of sculptures). Two animals remain. The 'acanthus leaves' plate is badly damaged and whiclst it is tempting to think it might also have been round, not enough appears to be left of the edge to tell. The unusual plate is the wings and thunderbolts plate, which appears to be about two thirds complete. I know of several other plates of this type from Vindonissa but I am not aware of any from other sites (others here may know better than me).

On the matter of buckles, no buckle was present which was large enough to have secured the belt the plates were presumably on. A large button and loop fastener was present however, and the author of the article proposed that this may have been used in place of a normal military buckle. Also present was the remains of a much smaller buckle which seems similar to the buckles found on Corbridge type segmentata. The proposal here was that this buckle may have been used to secure a strap which could have held the sword scabbard onto the belt. This buckle is parallelled by small buckles found with swords from both Herculanium and Delos.

Having typed this, I now realise it was probably me who posted up the small picture you mentioned, so I am posting it up again here. If you send me a PM with your e-mail I can send you the entire article as an attachment.



Crispvs