In it there are two corresponding T-shaped slots. The rectangular plate must obviously have formed one of the terminals of the girdle, while the circular disc with its catch formed the other. The catch, when inserted and slipped back into the stem of the T, would be securely fastened, while the double slot enabled the wearer to tighten his belt. The two remaining rectangular plates of brass were three and three-quarter inches long by one inch broad, and had evidently been fastened to the belt, each by three studs. The end studs were of copper, circular in shape, seven-eighths of an inch in diameter with a concave surface.
In addition to these there were found four laminae of thin brass (Plate XXV., Figs. 39, 40 and 41) varying from five to three and a quarter inches long, which had perhaps been inserted in the belt for stiffening purposes, as well as 100 studs of different shapes and sizes (Figs. 1 to 36). The studs were of five different types. The largest, which are circular with a diameter of eleven-sixteenths of an inch, are furnished with small washers (Figs. 28 and 30) to prevent them slipping out of the belt. Many of them had portions of leather still adhering. The size of the smallest heads is hardly greater than that of an ordinary pin (Fig. 35). No doubt these studs were employed to form a decorative pattern on the leather. In shape they very closely resemble those found at Hofheim,[1] and we have among them precisely the same types as are used to execute the decoration of the leather object illustrated in Plate XXI. No metal terminals were discovered to suggest that the belt had had the apron-like arrangement so frequently to be seen worn on soldiers' monuments. But that this did not always form part of the girdle is proved by the example shown in the monument of the Centurion Favonius at Colchester. Here the decorated plates are rectangular, filled in with a richly embossed design. The method of fastening noted in the Newstead girdle is evidently one which was commonly in vogue among the Celtic peoples. The same T-shaped catch is used for the gold torc from Broighter near Limavady, as well as for the torc from Serries en Val near Carcassonne figured by Mr. Arthur Evans,[2] and it is employed as a fastening for the decorated circular clasps of a hauberk of chain mail in the Thorsbjerg find.[3]
1 Ritterling, Das frührömische Lager bei Hofheim, p. 51, fig 16.
2 Archaeologia, vol. lv. pp. 399 and 400.
3 Engelhardt, Denmark in the Early Iron Age, Th,. pl. 7, fig. 8.
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