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• 1 2017-05-21T13:37:41-07:00 Copper Alloy Buckle Plate 5 object page plain 2017-09-21T22:43:22-07:00 This copper alloy buckle plate shows how the early Scandinavians in England continued to employ their traditional Scandinavian art styles rather than adopt the ways of the Christian English. The buckle was found with a metal detector in Yorkshire, England on an unknown date. As a belt buckle, it would have been used to secure or fasten the ends of a strap together. While the back of the buckle is nondescript, the face displays a stylized animal head that, due to wear, is difficult to make out. The animal is made up of three different elevated moldings, each of which depict different parts of the animal. The highest molding directly in the middle of the object represents the animal’s ears. The next molding is a shallow drilled hole to represent the animal’s eyes and the last molding represents the muzzle. A second, smaller animal head faces the first, but only the muzzle is clear enough to make out. This type of animal iconography, especially the large ears, is common to the Borre style, dating this belt to around 850-950 CE.^[1]
  
  This type of buckle has been found throughout the lands Scandinavians visited and, in fact, shares many similarities with another buckle found in nearby Norfolk. Both buckles have Borre styling showing two animals with large ears and holes for eyes facing each other.^[2] This would indicate that the two buckles were created approximately during the same time, suggesting that this type of buckle was popular during the early period of the Scandinavian occupation of England.^[3] The popularity of this Scandinavian style may indicate that the Norse were not very quick to assimilate to the Christian ways of the English; however, it is perhaps more likely that, since belt buckles were common, everyday objects for the Scandinavians, they may have been reluctant to change their familiar pagan stylings for new Christian motifs during their initial settlement.