7th century AD. A bronze tongue-shaped buckle plate with rectangular loop and ferrous tongue, incised guilloche border enclosing low-relief frieze of two opposed quadrupeds in profile with a third smaller one standing on the back of the right-hand animal; three pierced attachment lugs to the reverse. Cf. Menghin, W. The Merovingian Period. Europe Without Borders, Berlin, 2007, item IX.6.2. 81 grams, 10.6cm (4 1/4"). Property of a Suffolk collector; formerly acquired on the European art market in the 1990s.