Colchester belt plate

[Crispianus]

Forunately I found a pdf copy of "Camulodunum: First Report on the Excavations at Colchester 1930-1939" Hawkes & Hull, and indeed Miliary equipment is descibed from Pg335 as sited in Webster 1958, unfortunately it does not include any info regarding the belt plate, I think this may be because it is a much older find and this volume describes the 1930s Sheepen excavations a largely industrial (fabrica) site...

The last reference took some time its very difficult to find copy's of these ancient Journal's but here it is and the original image JBAA 4 1848-49 pg 84 (see Ref in Tony's pic) described as the cover of a small box, it seems to be a stray find, found whilst digging a drain just south of the Roman town wall in Osborn/St Johns/ Chapel and Essex Streets... this is not part of Sheepen which is north west of the town wall.

Awesome! So it has been found in 1848? And not in Sheepen but around Osborn?
What we know so far is that the plate is made out of thin bronze (maybe around 0.5 mm thick), punched and the size is about 6.6 x 4 cm. Correct?

I really love how the plate looks in the last sketch!

Yes (Osborn etc are all streets/straat? in colchester) its likely found a bit earlier maybe 1846-7 and south of the town wall where these roads are, and outside the original ditch and palisade of the fortress rather then NW at the Sheepen site, the size I took from the same redrawn drawing (the one I posted earlier), there must I think be another source for this illustration which is I think is based upon this original but not exact...

I think its likely that this is all there is, as the Colchester Museum didn't open till 1860 and there seems to be no mention of what happened to it later, there was also some suggestion that it may have been tinned/silvered, but this is by no means certain.