420 Rovina
A similar, but more modest sample in bronze was found at Abini-Teti (Nuoro).
Another unicum from Laerru cemetery is a bone buckle with a “duck-beak”
tongue, of a Lombard type, probably material evidence of contact with that
population (Fig. 16.2).8
The female ornaments found on Sardinia consist of pins and fibulae, neck-
laces, earrings, rings, and bracelets. They are generally of the sort widely dis-
seminated across continental Italy and Europe, as well as in Byzantine and
barbarian regions. Typically, the fibula used to pin cloaks in this period were
made of bronze, silver, or gold (disc-shaped). Rare on the island, such pins are
found only in the south-central region.9 A rare silver zoomorphic fibula with
the head of a turtle and an arched body, decorated with enamel, was found
8 The buckle has been found at multiple burial site in Laerru, in northern Sardinia, together
with many others with U-shaped plates and shields, among which is the one with the image
of St. Daniel; see Caprara, “Tarda antichità e alto medioevo,” pp. 172–173; Rovina, La sezione
medievale, p. 46. An analogous rod in iron emerged from the medieval necropolis of San
Pietro a Galtellì (Nuoro); see Rubens D’Oriano, NUORO. GALTELLI’. Necropoli medievale
presso la cattedrale di S. Pietro, in L’archeologia romana e altomedievale nell’oristanese, Atti del
Convegno di Cuglieri (22–23 giugno 1984) (Taranto, 1986), pp. 59–153. Another two—in bone
and bronze—were reported in Serra, “L’armamento,” p. 153.
9 Donatella Salvi, “Cagliari: San Saturnino, le fasi altomedievali,” in Corrias and Cosentino, Ai
confini dell’Impero, pp. 225–229, 162, figs 56, 150, 151, 152.
Figure 16.2 Lombard buckle carved from bone or deer antler (7th c.).