Late Roman belt

[John Conyard]

This is indeed a beautiful belt.

I think the belt of a Roman soldier, especially a Roman soldier in Britain, will tell you a great deal about him. Bar stiffeners, chipped plate buckles and strap ends and “dragon headed” buckles, are all very late and very southern in a British context. They could be interpreted as items used by more fashionable troops, probably from the continent, operating south of the Thames and in the case of the dragon headed buckles, along the south east coast. A dragon buckle with a fixed plate would be rare outside Kent.

So in Britain it could be the case that mobile field army troops could leave behind such fittings, while more static soldiers would continue using propeller stiffeners etc. You could try and make a distinction between mobile field army troops and those “in garrison”. But I suspect that it is much harder to make such a distinction on the continent where troops were closer to the centres of production.

I would like to know more about the use of bone in such belts. And I too like the method of sword suspension. Late Roman re-enactors from German often seem to have a different interpretation of sword suspension. I have always suspected that it has something to do with the interpretation of the sword furniture from the 3rd century bog deposits, and this interpretation has influenced the German interpretation of later suspension methods. It is an interesting approach that sounds as if it might be about to jump the Atlantic. mile: