English: Cast copper-alloy buckle frame, semi-circular in plan and semi-circular in cross-section, with a flat reverse. The frame was originally D-shaped, like the comparanda below.

Only one of the three terminals survives, in the form of a sub-triangular animal head terminal with circular eye sockets which may have originally been settings for a stone. The other two terminals on either side of this one are missing, but would probably have looked the same.

The frame is chamfered on the outer edge, but still leaving a flat upper surface which is ornamented with a zigzag pattern, with some barred ornament along the chamfered surface. Underneath, the curving part of the frame is chamfered inwards slightly from the outer edge.

The pin and bar are missing; the bar would originally have connected the missing two terminals together. A recess between the eyes of the surviving head represents the pin rest. The head is also decorated with curvilinear grooves and raised areas to define the eyes and nostrils, and there is a separate panel for the snout to suggest scales.

One similar example has already been found in Cornwall, in Phillack parish, CORN-EC5F13. A number of similar examples have been found in Suffolk, from Orford (SF7560), Nacton (SF-9F02E3), Claydon (SF-79DAF8) and Mendham (SF-76F478). The Mendham example was attached to the belt by means of an additional plate wrapped around the pin-bar and cut in at the outer edges to accommodate the frame. Other examples on the PAS database include NMS-9B0AC7 and an interesting pair of rectangular variants, HAMP-BA9FC0 and LVPL-99FBD2 (found in Suffolk).

A similar buckle frame from Old Sarum, although not from a dated context, is in the Ashmolean Museum (Hinton 1974, no. 32) and is also illustrated by Cuddeford (1996, p. 16, no. 15). They are dated on art-historical grounds from the 9th to the 11th century.

The closest parallels are in the Borre style, named after a site in Denmark, but this particular type of buckle has only been found in Britain and Ireland and therefore should be referred to as Anglo-Scandinavian or Hiberno-Norse (see below).

"The triangular headed animal is found commonly on 10th century strap ends in Ireland that are probably made in Hiberno-Norse Dublin, but based pn Anglo-Saxon forms. They have been found on high status crannogs in the midlands that were in commercial contact with Dublin and an example was found in the vicinity of a Viking house at Truska, Co. Galway. I don't have any exact parallels from buckles, although the animal form is found on a moulding on a buckle plate from the royal crannog of Coolure Demesne, Co. Westmeath (Coolure Demesne Crannog, Lough Derravaragh: an introduction to its archaeology and landscapes, Aidan O'Sullivan, Rob Sands and Eamonn P. Kelly, Wordwell, Bray, 2007, page 29, Fig.34, No. E621:79). This site also produced other Viking Age material including hack silver, ingots, scales, weights etc. If your buckle were to turn up on a Viking Age site in Ireland it would probably be assumed to have a Hiberno-Norse background" (Eamonn Kelly, National Museum of Ireland, pers comm).