7th-9th century AD. A silver-gilt belt buckle with oval plaque decorated with two stylised ducks, annulets in the field and a pellet border. 12.3 grams, 68mm wide (2 3/4"). Collection formed in the 2000s. Property of an English gentleman. The theme of the duck, inherited by the Romans from Sassanian art (wall painting in Eastern Turkestan, reliefs at Taq-i-Btan, see Inkova, 2003, p.91), was widely ed in belt mounts of the Eastern Roman Empire, especially from the 7th to the 9th century AD (belts from Syria and from the Necropolis of Skalistoe, South Crimea"). [No Reserve]