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Archaeologia Cantiana -  Vol. 69  1955  page 33

THE JUTISH CEMETERY AT LYMINGE    By Alan Warhurst, B.A., A.M.A.
Probably much of the base as well as the precious metal of the Anglo-Saxon jeweller and metalsmith was obtained from the Roman Imperial coinage.
   This inlay technique, especially when it occurs on buckles, such as that from grave 29, has been conventionally dismissed as "Frankish imported". An insular school for this type of work has, however, been argued for recently1 and a good deal of evidence produced by X-ray photography to show that this work is, in fact, more common in England than was at first thought. There is no doubt that the technique was also practised in Merovingian Gaul and, although it is possible to parallel the Lyminge spearhead inlay on only two other examples2, both from this country, only more extensive X-ray photography of corroded specimens in museums on both sides of the channel will determine the true provenance of the Lyminge spearhead.

Buckles.
   It is inevitable that amongst such an imposing array of grave furniture as that found in Lyminge the exotic and highly decorated objects should present conflicting chronological pictures. A less confusing and more reliable estimate of the date of the cemetery may be gained from those objects which are not of great intrinsic value, but yet have sufficient morphological characteristics for their chronological sequence to be determined. Such a group of 

objects is that of the buckles and the Lyminge cemetery has produced a good yield of these.
   In all 19 buckles were found. Of these 11 were in the graves of men and 5 in the graves of women. A careful check was kept on the positions of these but apparently sex did not determine whether a belt was fastened from the left or from the right. In most cases the way in which the belt was joined to the buckle and to the attachment-plate was established. Eighteen of the Lyminge buckles are in a condition worthy of illustration (Figs. 8 and 9, and Pl. IX and Pl. X). All of these consist of a simple oval loop, sometimes with a stem of reduced thickness, and all except three of the tongues (graves 12, 23 and 42) are plain. Some show a characteristic thickening of the tongue at its base but three alone have shields (graves 12, 23 and 42) and these are only slightly developed. The majority of the buckles fall, then, into a group discussed by Aberg3 and placed by him in the latter half of the sixth century A.D. The Style 1 decorated attachment-plate from grave 1 is what one would expect to find with buckles of this type4. The absence
1. Miss Vera I. Evison "Early Anglo-Saxon Inlaid Metalwork", Antiquaries Journal, Vol. XXXV, p. 21.
2. ibid., p. 24.
3. N. Aberg, The Anglo-Saxons in England, p. 117.
4. For further examples see ibid, p. 118.

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