Belt plate
The term belt plate describes a mostly long rectangular plate made of bronze or iron , which was used for men and women in the Hallstatt period as a belt fastener and ornament.
definition
Belt plates usually consist of thin bronze plate, often have embossed or punched decorations and were attached to the belt leather with a few rivets or seam holes. A hook, sometimes made of riveted iron sheet for reinforcement , on the opposite side of the sheet was hooked into a riveted ring or a hole in the belt leather and thus formed the closure.
These sheets are numerous and in variously elaborate versions from men's and women's graves. The decorated belt plates are found more often in women's graves, the undecorated ones more often in men's graves. Sometimes the leather part of the belt was additionally shod with small bronze pins, or the sheet metal covered the belt completely, so that not only the front part, but the whole belt shone golden.
Sometimes a belt hanger made of bronze chains and pendants or organic material also hung from the women's belt , as shown by graves from Hirschlanden and Dürrnberg (near Hallein).
The belt plates of the so-called Holstein belts are particularly lavishly equipped .
literature
- Jewelry of the Celts . (Ed.) Naturhistorische Gesellschaft Nürnberg eV, Nürnberg 1998