Belt buckle

This object is made of two identical parts, each made of a half-circle plate extending into a triangular end. Every surface is embellished; on the join, at the centre, two large studs enclosed a stone, now missing.

Belts were among the many elements of Oriental adornment. They have been since at least the Umayyad period, as reflected by the female figures painted at the Qusayr Amra[1] baths. During the Abbasid period, paintings in the Palace of the Jawsaq in Samarra (ninth century) depict women wearing, among other things, belts with rows of golden tassels. The use of belts was perpetuated in later periods: the frontispiece of a thirteenth century Maqâmât manuscript in Hariri[2] describes a sovereign wearing a golden belt. During the nineteenth century and into at the beginning of the twentieth century, in both the Near East and the Occident, belts, with large finely-worked buckles, always appear as an element of adornment.

Many buckles have been found in the Middle East, more specifically in the regions under the reign of the Fatimid Dynasty. The shape of this buckle is very similar to that of the one discovered in digs at Ashkelon (Israel)[3]. The mirroring of two symmetrical elements is more generally reminiscent of bracelets with triangular clasps, a type of jewellery that was very common in the Syro-Egyptian regions of the Islamic world.

Various goldsmithing techniques were used here. The base plate is made out of a sheet of gold. The decorations are formed by an area of various sizes of welded granulations, according to a technique requiring perfect control of the melting fusion temperatures of the metal. Although the use of granulation to cover surfaces is very common in the Near East, it is also widespread in Iranian goldsmithed objects, for example a gold bracelet from the first half of the eleventh century[4], whose clasp is entirely decorated using the same technique. Here, it emphasizes the rounded shape of the piece and creates a patterns of starry rosettes on either side of a central axis. The battes are also entirely covered with granulation very much like the Fatimid pieces, in particular certain earrings, virtual three-dimensional constructions of gold nets[5]. The triangular repoussé-work ends offer a decoration of whorls and smooth beads contrasting with the flatter ornamentation of the other parts of the buckle. This treatment allows the light to reflect on the pieces in different ways.

The shape of the buckle, the style of the embellishment, the techniques used allow us perhaps to consider attributing a date earlier than that proposed until now. In fact, the piece seems closer to a Syro-Egyptian production of the Fatimid period or slightly later than a Mamluk work of art; the rare examples of preserved Mamluk belts are very different.

[2] Preserved in Vienna, Kunsthistorische Museum.

[3] For a detailed study of the dig material, cf. article by Myriam Rosen-Ayalon cited in the bibliography.

[4] Gold bracelet, Iran, first half of the eleventh century, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Inv. 57.88a-c.