Belt plate details

[Tarbicus]

With the Roman Britain room still closed at the British Museum, perhaps someone could shed some light on two belt plates as seen in this photo:

http://www.larp.com/legioxx/Belt2BM.jpg

From Legio XX's website: http://www.larp.com/legioxx/balteus.html

The middle belt plate seems to have two different surfaces? Or am I mistaken and it's just patina?

If you look closely at the plate on the right, are they red rust patches on the circle surrounding the central dome (upper left of the circle), or something else?

Thanks.

[griffin]

It looks like a strange patina on the middle plate.

Regarding the rightmost plate. I can definitely see the ruby-red marks on the circle, but I have no idea what they are.

[M. Demetrius]

Some of my brass gets that color near the copper rivets sometimes. Don't know why, because copper oxides are blue-green. But nevertheless, they're the Dickens to clean off.

[Matthew Amt]

As far as I know, it's just the patina making odd effects in the photo. All 3 plates are apparently tinned, though they might have some brass deliberately left plain, or some of the tinning may have worn off in spots. Couldn't tell you about the red marks, though it's not rust unless some other iron artifact was resting on the plate. I've seen reddish patina on copper alloys, before. The color may have been exaggerated by the camera, perhaps.

For some reason, the display was set up with the hinge plate of the buckle OVERlapping the plate on the left, instead of being under it, but that's the kind of thing that happens when pieces from different places are put together in a case, sometimes.

Nice stamped plates, but pretty straightforward. I think!

Matthew

[Tarbicus]

Thanks for your input everyone. I had a notion that the red spots might have been remnants of enamel as they don't seem to be present elsewhere on the plate, and are maybe restricted to the ring only.

[Peroni]

Matts website says that they are from 'various sites'. Actually they are ALL from Hod hill.

The buckle is From the Durden collection. found at Hod Hill. (BM 92 9-1 804) This is the buckle I have on my belt!
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b242/ ... CF2289.jpg

The plate which has the two-tone effect is from the Durden collection (BM 92 9-1 846)

To the left of the buckle is a plate also from the Durden collection (BM 92 9-1 853)

The plate on the far right is from the Bean Collection. Found in 1947 (BM 1960 4-5 3239)


All pieces are dated to the Claudian period.

[Eleatic Guest]

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b242/ ... CF2289.jpg

Just curious, but how is this belt buckle type called in English? Williams belt or something? I mean, this system with the movable pin which is put into the holes of the belt is pretty much universal today, isn't it? Where did it originate?

[Marcus Mummius]

If you look closely at the plate on the right, are they red rust patches on the circle surrounding the central dome (upper left of the circle), or something else?

Jim, the red zones you see are most likely a form of copper oxidation, called cuprite.

You'd be amazed about the different kinds of copper corrosion. The colours and texture can vary a lot.

Copper carbonates are mostly blue or green(for example azurite and malachite) . Copper chlorides are most often white (very common forms are atacamite and paratacamite) or grey (nantocite). Copper oxides, like cuprite, are very dense and hard and often have a red or brown colour.

On this picture you can see a nice array of different types of copper corrosion:


Vale,
Jef

[Matthew Amt]

Just curious, but how is this belt buckle type called in English? Williams belt or something? I mean, this system with the movable pin which is put into the holes of the belt is pretty much universal today, isn't it? Where did it originate?

Good question!! It was definitely in use in very early Roman-era stuff, c. 500 BC. You can see impressions of small buckles on early muscled cuirasses from Italy. I *don't* know if similar things are known from Greek finds or not. My big interest being the Bronze Age, up to around 700 BC, I would LOVE to find any evidence for such buckles anywhere, but have not seen a clue so far. So my conclusion is that they came in more or less with the Iron Age.

I've never heard the term "Williams belt", either. We just call it a buckle! Modern buckles aren't made the same way as Roman ones, though they work the same way, and we don't really have separate words for them, that I know of.

Vale,

Matthew