Necklace buckle

A hook-and-loop clasp of a neck-ring comes from a hoard of silver ornaments found in a clay pot, discovered at the end of 1930s in Bogucin, Kołobrzeg district, in a quarry used for excavating rocks for road building. The hoard dates to the period after 995. A neck-ring clasp or neck-ring buckle is an object cut from oval-shaped silver piece of metal with elongated ends, with a hook on one side and two holes on the other. The surface of the clasp is decorated with zig-zag patterns, as well as rows of circles and diagonal lines. Two such clasps were used simultaneously to fasten the neck-ring. The ends of the neck-rings, in this case two, were attached to the holes at the ends. Neck-ring clasps are most often discovered in hoards, less often in cemeteries. They date back to the 10th-13th centuries, as well as the early 14th century. They were decorated with styluses with bevelled or vertical tips, with wooden handles. The decorated piece was attached to – most likely – a wooden pad, which could be rotated. An ornament was then sketched on the surface, which was then reproduced with a stylus. It was a common practice to combine engraving with punching out motifs, as in the case of the clasp from Bogucin.

Ewa Górkiewicz-Bucka