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This would likely have been an officer belt, I think there is no problem for common soldiers to wear a cingulum with brass/bronze fittings.
It is not a common type. I choosed it because the hoard is 5th century (of course the belt fittings could be earlier) and the buckle shape is very similar to finds from Brittany and Cornwall. I portray a late/sub/post-Roman brittonic chieftain from late 5th century Brittany. And I hope to get more and more 'bling', thinking about how men such as Riothamus or Ambrosius Aurelianus could have looked like.
"O niurt Ambrois ri Frangc ocus Brethan Letha."
"By the strenght of Ambrosius, king of the Franks and the Armorican Bretons."
Lebor Bretnach, Irish manuscript of the
Historia Brittonum.
Agraes / Morcant map Conmail / Benjamin Franckaert
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You missed your chance to hit the PowerBall, so yep. Back to the door flyers. 8)
M. Demetrius Abicio
(David Wills)
Saepe veritas est dura.
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Like Robert, I've been well aware of this one for a long time and wasn't aware that it wasn't widely known.
It should be remembered that this is a hoard of silver items from all over the place, made up of bits of 50 bowls, 28 dishes, 10 pitchers, 8 other vessels and about 50 smaller objects and fragments and there's no way of knowing whether that buckle was ever worn locally or aquired somewhere else and deposited as part of the hoard.
Curle reckoned that the whole lot was the loot left by Germanic pirates and that some of the items (the buckle inlcuded) were Visigoth in origin.
"Medicus" Matt Bunker
[size=150:1m4mc8o1]WURSTWASSER![/size]
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Laudes Robert. So it looks like those buckles were made in limes factories in the first half of the 5th century. Especially in Pannonia, but possibly in Germania and Gaul aswell? Maybe this kind of buckle was originally for the limitanei units. That would explain why a similar shape but with Quoit Brooch decoration found its way on the Tractus armoricanus. We may have the last generation of late roman buckles in the west?
"O niurt Ambrois ri Frangc ocus Brethan Letha."
"By the strenght of Ambrosius, king of the Franks and the Armorican Bretons."
Lebor Bretnach, Irish manuscript of the
Historia Brittonum.
Agraes / Morcant map Conmail / Benjamin Franckaert
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Kazanski thought this was from a Hunnic warrior? My French is not that good).
PS this was mentioned on the Armes forum.. :whistle:
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If dating from the 5th century that's possible; Aetius and Litorius both had Hunnic Bucellarii and operated in Armorica fighting Rebels in the 430's and 440's. However, they probably would have been supplied high quality with Roman equipment
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So news and necropost: this buckle, in fact this whole typology of buckles, is Hunnic. It's more evidence for Hun influence on the 5th century Roman military. They come from a typology that originates in the Eurasian Steppes; a contemporary example from Volnikovka in Russia has a complete set of buckle and stiffeners that wrap all the way around the belt.