GEOGRAPHY AND ANTIQUITIES. 385 



examples of the circular gold fibula will be seen in the Faussett collection, 

 and they are met with in almost every collection of Anglo-Saxon remains 

 from the Kentish barrows. 



" Other jewelry, such as rings, bracelets, necklaces of beads, pendants 

 to the neck and ears, &c., are found in abundance, and in a great variety of 

 form. Gold coins are sometimes fitted up as pendent ornaments. The 

 most common material of beads is glass or variegated clay, the latter made 

 with great skill, and often exhibiting pleasing patterns. It belonged to a 

 class of manufacture which has continued to exist in this country down 

 to a recent period. Another common material of beads was amber ; and 

 we sometimes find small lumps of amber which have been perforated, in 

 order to be attached to the person by a string. It must be observed that 

 we sometimes find a string of beads round the neck of a man ; and other 

 circumstances show that there were Saxon exquisites who were vain enough 

 of their personal adornments. It is, however, a very usual thing to find 

 one or more beads of amber near the neck in cases where there can be no 

 doubt that the deceased was a man ; but this circumstance is explained by 

 a widely- prevailing superstition in the middle ages, that amber carried on 

 the person was a protection against the influence of evil spirits. Large 

 hairpins, usually of bone or bronze, and more or less ornamented, are 

 generally found near the heads of skeletons of females, in such a position 

 as leads us to conclude that the Saxon ladies bound up their hair behind 

 in a manner similar to that which prevailed among the Romans. 



" A great variety of household utensils, of different kinds, are also found 

 in the Anglo-Saxon graves. The pottery, when not Roman, is of a rude 

 construction, and, in fact, it is not very abundant ; for our Anglo-Saxon 

 forefathers, for several ages after their settlement in this island, seem to 

 have used principally pottery of Roman manufacture. I would merely 

 call your attention to the particular character of several earthen ware urns 

 found in Kent, which Bryan Faussett supposed to be early Romano- 

 British, and of which I shall have to speak again farther on. But if the 

 Anglo-Saxon earthen ware was rude and coarse in its character, the case 

 was quite different with the Anglo-Saxon glass, which is rather common 

 in the graves of Kent. The glass of the Anglo-Saxons is fine and deli- 

 cately thin. It is found chiefly in drinking cups, though a few small 

 basins and bottle- shaped vessels of glass have been found. The form of 

 the drinking cups will be best understood by a diagram. It will be ob- 

 served that they are either pointed at the bottom, or rounded in such a 

 manner that they could never have stood upright a form which it is sup- 

 posed was given them to force each drinker to empty his glass at a draught. 

 This practice is understood to have existed down to a much later period, 

 and it is said to have given rise to the name tumbler, applied originally to 

 a drinking glass which was never intended to stand upright. The orna- 

 mentation of the Anglo-Saxon glass generally consists either of furrows, 

 on the surface, or of strings of glass attached to the vessel after it was 

 made. Both these ornaments seem to come fairly under the epithet 



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