Late Antique and Early East Roman Belt Buckles from Anemurium: Typology, Context and New Evidence

This article presents a study of thirteen previously unpublished bronze belt buckles recovered during excavations conducted between 2018 and 2025 at Anemurium, one of the principal harbour cities of Cilicia Tracheia Region in Asia Minor. Integrating catalogue documentation with typological and contextual analysis, the study examines material from a range of architectural units, including Central Building A, the Necropolis Church, the Small Bath, the Central Bath (III 5), and the Colonnaded Street sondage, thereby reflecting the functional and social diversity of the city’s Late Antique and early East Roman urban fabric.The primary aim is to reassess these buckles typologically and chronologically on the basis of secure archaeological contexts and to re-evaluate existing models concerning their production, distribution, and patterns of use. Methodologically, the analysis combines detailed morphological description with comparative classification according to the typological systems of Russell and Schulze-Dörrlamm, alongside a building-based contextual assessment. The results indicate that the Anemurium belt buckle repertoire exhibits a broad range of formal variation, extending from miniature fixed-plate forms to hinged examples, with a chronological concentration between the late fifth and the mid-seventh centuries AD.By expanding the corpus of securely excavated material from Asia Minor, the study places discussions of East Roman belt buckles on firmer archaeological foundations. It provides new and reliable chronological data for types that remain underrepresented in the literature and documents the first contextually attested examples of certain forms from Asia Minor. In doing so, the article moves beyond purely typological evaluation, highlighting the social, symbolic, and economic dimensions of belt buckles and underscoring the central role of Asia Minor within East Roman production and distribution networks.The analysis employs Russell’s typology for Anemurium together with Schulze-Dörrlamm’s classification of Byzantine belt buckles, reconsidering major groups such as A6–A9, D9 (Balgota type), D12 (Syrakus), D14, D20, D22, and E21 within their structure-specific archaeological contexts. While most of the buckles consist of miniature fixed-plate forms, the catalogue also includes a rectangular-framed element belonging to a multi-part belt set and a hinged example of the E21 type. Typological and stratigraphic evidence indicates that these belt buckles cluster within a relatively narrow chronological span extending from the late 5th to the mid-7th century AD.The Anemurium assemblage expands the number of known Asia Minor examples for several rare types and, importantly, provides the first securely stratified contexts for them. In particular, the rectangular-framed Cat. 3, the drop-shaped Cat. 9, the D14 buckle Cat. 12, and the E21 buckle Cat. 13 offer new and significant data that strengthen the role of Asia Minor within the production and circulation networks of Byzantine belt buckles. Collectively, the findings demonstrate that these objects were not merely functional fasteners associated with trouser belts, but rather multi-layered indicators of status, identity, and Christian symbolism.