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• 1 2017-05-22T08:51:16-07:00 Bronze Square Belt Buckle 9 object page plain 2017-09-21T23:10:08-07:00 This Rectangular Belt Buckle is a bronze belt fitting found on the island of Bornholm near Svaneke. It is a ring of black metal with a corroded bifurcating clasp, and then a large rectangular sheet perforated with holes to feed the leather belt through. This piece is dated between the 5th and 11th century. A belt buckle is significant because belts are powerful markers of Germanic peoples and because it offers us a glimpse of key everyday realities of living as a Norseman in this period. Pants were exclusively worn by Germanic peoples, Romans wore togas or skirts instead. As there was no elastic belts were the only way pants could be kept aloft.Belt buckles are commonly grave goods, and are overwhelmingly found in male graves. This suggests there was some fundamental difference in men's and women's basic attire. Thus, from the disparity in grave presence, we can infer that only men wore pants.
  
  Belts were narrow and leather, and there were no loops so excess was fed through and knotted. While this particular artifact is unornamented, many belt buckles were lavishly decorated, as were the strap ends that adorned the belt knots.^[1] This indicates that the belt was a platform for personal expression. Belts were also crucial to the items a Norse man would have on him at all times.  Norse tunics and pants had no pockets, so items an individual wanted to carry with them always were affixed to the belt. Those included most vitally a small knife, as well as a small carrying pouch.^[2] This helps us to paint a picture of what was most essential to the everyday life of someone living in this particular place and time. We see here an opportunity to express oneself, as well as the expected outfitting of a randomly selected individual. That women seem not to have belts suggests a hypothesis that women hung their essentials from their chatelaines; suspender like chains that kept their dresses aloft. This belt buckle offers us a view into what was the expected outfitting and expected level of self expression of Norse man of this era.