TH. PETERSEN. [1907 



figured by O. Ryg h 1. c. all bearing witness to the highly developed 

 artistic taste of the Celts and an admirable technical skill hardly 

 surpassed by that of our own tinses. A Celtic origin must alsa 

 be attributed to the bronze bowls mentioned by I. Undset in 

 "Aarbøger for nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie" 1889, pp. 292 ff., 

 characterized by three enamelled mountings and zoomorphic handles, 

 the upper part of vvhich is like a hook, terminating in a beast's 

 head, which projects inwards over the rim of the bowl. Mountings 

 of the same sort have been found in the British Isles, and two 

 examples from Barlaston, Staffordshire, and Chesterton-on-Foss- 

 way, Warwickshire, are figured and described by J. Ro mil ly 

 Allen in his "Celtic Art in Pagan and Christian Times", Lond. 

 1904, pp. 166 f.^) Other enamelled objects in Norvvegian finds 

 ma}^ also be of the same origin.^) 



All these finds of Celtic antiquities must in general be as- 

 signed to an early part of the Viking age and afford a significant 

 archæological illustration of the intercourse betvveen the Celtic area 

 of the British Isles and Norway during this period. 



Lately a new find of this kind has been dug up in Norway, 

 the most remarkable one, I think, that up to the present is known. 

 It is a Celtic reliquary found in the autumn of 1906 in a large 

 grave-mound at Melhus in the parish of Overhallen, in Namdalen 

 Valley, about 25 kilometres east of the town of Namsos. The 

 shrine forms part of the burial equipment of a grave, the single ob- 

 jects of which have been brought to light at various times by the 

 farmer and sent to the Museum of the Royal Society of Sciences- 

 at Trondhjem. An opportunity of examining the remains of the 

 mound by an excavation on the part of the Museum did not present 

 itself until the summer of 1907, when the investigation was under- 

 taken by the author. At this investigation I succeeded in ascer- 

 taining the nature of the burial, but of the contents of the grave 

 next to nothing was left, as also naturally might be supposed. 



1) See also J. Ro mi II y Allen, The Early Christian Monuments of Scotland,. 



Lond. 1903, pp. LXXV f. 

 -) I. Undset 1, c. p. 308. 



