258 (44)

229

Mounts

STRAP LOOPS

(loops to hołd down loose parts of straps)

Those listed are of cast copper alloy, though iron versions are also known.

There are two basie categories - those with rivets (integral when extemal, and separate when intemal to the frame), and those with a pair of opposed projections. Examples of the first variety are known still in situ on straps - on an archer’s wrist guard (fig 143), and flanked by a pair of bar-mounts with pendent loops (fig 138, bottom). There are also iron examples - on a decorated spur (BC72 acc. no. 3664 - see fig 69), and a notably heavy example survives as part of an iron buckie (fig 150 - Ashmolean Museum acc. no. 1873.85). On spurs the form goes back to the Viking period (Ottaway 1985, 26). It is assumed that those with projections also went on straps, where they too would presumably have been set at a right angle to the leather or textile. This category could have been moved back and forth along the strap. The two basie forms thus appear to be fixed and adjustable versions of the same item, intended to hołd down the otherwise loose end of a strap which overlapped beyond the buckie. Many latter-day waist belts have a smali loop of the same materiał as the strap itself, set close to the buckie to serve the same function. In the excavated examples the apertures are all

143 Archer’s wrist guard (1:1)