Inlaid iron buckle and plate

Fragmentary buckle-plate, now mounted on plaster, coloured silver. Max. area of original plate surviving is 2.5 x 2.1cm. The plate was of iron, with three large dome-headed silver rivets at one side, encircled by beaded silver wire collars, and three smaller rivets similarly set on the other. When excavated the additional decoration obscured by corrosion was not noticed, and it was Miss Tankard at Liverpool, pre-1955, who had it cleaned to reveal: long slender arrow-shaped gold cloisonné cells set with flat garnets on gold foil, project from between the larger rivets to the spaces between the smaller: two now survive, but there are indications of a third on one side, and possibly originally four altogether. Between these are triangular spaces filled with a herringbone design of inlaid flat wires, alternately gold and silver. On the outer side of the smaller row of rivets are 3 transverse grooves which probably once contained more wire inlay.Evison 1955 notes the incongruity of silver studs on an iron plate, suggesting further inlay before finding Miss Tankard's reconstruction and suggesting also the error in the drawing in the Inventorium Sepulchrale