A new quoit brooch style strap-end from Shorne
The quoit brooch style or QBS is one of those enigmatic bits of British archaeology that every few years is brought up again in discussions of the late Roman military, early- medieval graves or ideas of transition and continuity (the most recent discussion by Ellen Swift in 20191, leaning towards the latter topic should be everyone’s immediate go to for an in-depth academic discussion on the matter).
The style itself can be tricky to pin down being as it is, in reality a permutation of late Roman zoomorphic art, yet named after large flat annular brooches dating from the middle of the fifth century, representing the likely final phase of the style’s use. The Sarre brooch being perhaps the most iconic (Fig. 1).
[fg]jpg|Fig 1: The Sarre Brooch, in the British Museum since 1893 (John Byrne CC BY-SA 4.0).|Image[/fg]
The style is mostly easily defined as including decorative elements lightly engraved or punched into metal, depicting highly stylised animals with human faces and Late Roman geometric motifs – spirals, palmettes etc.2 The running animals often in an annular pattern as on brooches such as the Sarre example, are often touted as the easiest way of recognising the type although such animals are not always present.
This latter point means some ambiguity amongst a piece can occur. A notable example of this is the late Roman strap-end from Candovers, in Hampshire (Fig. 2) which still has some debate surrounding it, as to whether it quite qualifies or should be considered part of continental sub-roman traditions.
[fg]jpg|Fig 2: The Caldovers strap-end with palmettes, running bars and other typically late roman stylistic elements, recorded on the Portable Antiquities Scheme’s (PAS) database as WREX-AEACCA (National Museum CC BY 2.0).|Image[/fg]
A defining feature on one sub-group of QBS objects is the mimicking of elements that on Roman objects were functional, that is strap-ends with crenelated terminals. On Roman belt fittings which these objects copy, the crenelated elements would have been paired and fitted together to form hinged join, but on the QBS examples these elements are solid and form the terminals to strap-ends3. That is exactly what we see here with this recently recorded historic find from Shorne, North Kent.
Recorded recently with the PAS as KENT-A8F183 (Fig. 3), this strap end includes many of the hallmarks of the QBS; palmettes, running geometric motifs, pseudo elements, etc. minus the overtly animal elements. It fits a small group of quoit brooch style (QBS) strap ends typified by a find from Pewsey, Wilts, now in Devises Museum.[fn4]
The corpus of strap ends produced in the QBS is very small and it isn’t yet clear how they are connected. The majority do however appear to be of the ‘Pewsey type’: HAMP21585 on the PAS database from Exton, near Winchester, Hants., Grave 3 at Chessell Down Isle of White6 , another from Croydon, Surrey7 and the type example from Pewsey, Wiltshire8. Further to this, the probably incomplete or possibly reworked example on the PAS database from Meonstoke, Hants. HAMP19669 shares the roundel decoration shown on this example, however its’ original form isn’t certain.
[fg]jpg|Fig 3: The Shorne QBS strap-end, KENT-A8F183, as recorded on PAS’s database (Kent County Council CC BY 2.0).|Image[/fg]
Many of the ‘Pewsey’-type strap ends have zoomorphic arched shoulders, e.g. the Pewsey example10 or that from Exton, near Winchester, Hants[fn11] , with horses being the probable intended motif. The shoulders seen on this example, as with a number of others in the group e.g., the example from Croydon[fn12] appear to be devolved permutations of this design. Similar devolution of such elements has been seen amongst Late Roman and sub-Roman artefacts e.g. Hawkes and Dunning type I and II buckles[fn13] (the latter being similar horse heads) and the end- plate forms of antler and bone combs.[fn14]
The repair and wear visible on this example is a well noted feature of many QBS objects implying a very long use life.15 This fits wider patterns of continued reuse and repair of Roman style objects seen in sub-Roman Britain, likely due to a combination of attempts to maintain Romano-British cultural values and the scarcity of new metalwork in the wake of the collapse of Roman authority.[fn16] This example adds another excellent example of this practice.
Jo Ahmet is a small finds specialist working in London, the former Finds Liaison Officer for Kent, a former commercial archaeologist and MA Artifacts graduate from UCL.
[fn]1|Swift, E., 2019 Re-evaluating the Quoit Brooch Style: Economic and Cultural Transformations in the 5th Century ad, with an Updated Catalogue of Known Quoit Brooch Style Artefacts, Oxford[/fn]
[fn]2|Marzinzik, S., 2013, Masterpieces: Early Medieval Art, London[/fn]
[fn]3|Loc. cit. i, pp. 6[/fn]
[fn]4|Suzuki, S., 2000 The Quoit Brooch Style and Anglo-Saxon Settlement, a casting and recasting of cultural identity symbols, Woodbridge, Boydell; Loc. cit. i, No.A24.[/fn]
[fn]5|Worrell, S (2002) HAMP2158: A EARLY MEDIEVAL STRAP END Web page available at: www.finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/record/id/32473 [Accessed: 13 Jun 2025][/fn]
[fn]6|Loc. cit. iv, 141, No.17.[/fn]
[fn]7|Loc. cit. iv, 141, No.18.[/fn]
[fn]8|Loc. cit. iv, 141, No.19.[/fn]
[fn]9|Worrell, S (2002) HAMP1966: A EARLY MEDIEVAL STRAP END Web page available at: www.finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/record/id/31623 [Accessed: 13 Jun 2025][/fn]
[fn]10|Loc. cit. iv, 141, No.19.[/fn]
[fn]11|Loc. cit.v[/fn]
[fn]12|Loc. cit. iv, 141, No.18.[/fn]
[fn]13|Hawkes, S.C. and Dunning, G.C, 1961 Soldiers and Settlers, fourth to fifth century: with a catalogue of animal-ornamented buckles and related belt-fittings, Medieval Archaeology 5, London, The Society for Medieval Archaeology.[/fn]
[fn]14|Crummy, N. and Henry, R., 2024 Double-Sided Antler and Bone Combs in Late Roman Britain, Oxford, Archaeopress, pp. 32.[/fn]
[fn]15|Swift 2019, 23[/fn]
[fn]16|Swift 2019, 25[/fn]