252 HULL SCIENTIFIC AND FIELD NATURALISTS CLUB. 



the name is also inexplicable as Celtic, since names beginning 

 with ' auc ' and ' auci ' are not uncommon in Gaul, and the 

 whole name ' Aucissa ' seems to occur on a broken piece of 

 ' Samian ' found in Paris about a hundred years ago. More- 

 over, a Gaulish fibula maker is no novelty. The Gauls are 

 well known to have been skilful in the manufacture of small 

 metal objects like fibulae, and we can point to traces of actual 

 work in fibulae, which constitute a good parallel to ' Aucissa.' 

 Mowat has recorded in the Bulletin Epigraphique about a 

 score of names inscribed on fibulae found in Gaul. They are 

 obviously makers' names, and while about half of them are 

 ordinary Roman names, about half of them are Gaulish names. 

 Accu, Atrectos, Boduos, Carillus, Durnacus, Iovincillus, Iulios 

 Avo, Litugenus, Nertomarus, and the like. The fibulae which 

 bear these names, vary in character, but some belong to the 

 ' Aucissa ' type, as, for instance, the fibulae of Durnacus. 

 Now these names are not only Gaulish, but most of them 

 occur only in Gaul ; they do not belong to any Eastern Celtic 

 district in Central Europe. And it is to be added that the 

 whole practice of placing makers' names, whether Gaulish 

 or Roman, on fibulae, seems especially Gaulish. That country 

 has yielded the largest number of recorded fibulae thus in- 

 scribed. In other provinces the inscribed fibulae are gene- 

 rally of a different kind ; they bear such inscriptions as 

 ' Constanti vivas' or ' utere felix,' and they usually belong 

 to a far later date than that which we have assigned to the 

 ' Aucissa ' species. It is possible that we should go on to 

 trace some connection between the practice of stamping 

 ' Samian ' ware made in Gaul, and the practice, a much 

 rarer practice, of stamping fibulae made in Gaul. But the 

 Gaulish potters copied an Etruscan fashion, and the Gaulish 

 fibula makers might have done the same, so that the argu- 

 ment is not much advanced by such a consideration. On the 

 whole, the balance of direct and indirect evidence, favours 

 the view that the fibulae stamped with the name 'Aucissa,' 

 were made in Gaul, or at least copied from ' Aucissa ' fibulae 

 made in Gaul. It does not follow that the uninscribed 

 fibulae of the same type were Gaulish, or that the type had 

 a Gaulish origin. In deciding these questions, caution will 

 be desirable, and until further evidence be discovered, the 

 verdict may be reserved." 



It is particularly gratifying to find two brooches of this 

 character from South Ferriby. In addition to the examples 

 figured above, there is a fragment of rather more than half 

 of a fibula of undoubtedly the same type. This is much 



