398 Notes on Objects of Late Celtic Character found in Wiltshire, 



when found, it had a piece of wood fitted into the coil of the spring, 

 to which the iron pin with which it had been mended was fastened. 



I would suggest that, at least in the Wiltshire examples, this 

 bronze axis is like the wooden peg at Cowlam, an expedient by 

 which the fibula, after being broken, was made serviceable 

 again. Does the mending in this way of so many of these fibulse 

 go to prove that they were valuable articles, and so indirectly 

 support the early date given to them ? ^ 



I have thought it best to illustrate the whole of the thirteen 

 known Wiltshire examples of these " La Teue I.," or " Marnian," 

 fibulfe, whether they are complete or not. The block of the Avebury 

 example is most kindly lent by the authorities of the British 

 Museum {Early Iron Age Guide, p. 100) ; Messrs. Batsford most 

 obligingly allow me to copy the illustrations of the two from 

 Eotherley in Gen. Pitt-Eivers' Excavations, Vol. II., PI. XCVII. 

 Figs. 5 and 6 ; the two in Mr. Brooke's collection are from drawings 

 by himself ; the remaining eight are from my own sketches. In all 

 cases the figures are full size. 



Fig. 3. Late Celtic Fibula, Avebury. [British Museum.] 



Description of the Wiltshire Examples of " La Tene I. Fibula 



Fig. 3. Found near Avebury, presented to British Museum, 1876, by Bev. 

 Henry Harris, Rector of Winterbourne Bassett. The pin and one 



' It may be worth while recalling the fact that the metal of which these 

 ancient brooches are made is not of the colour which we associate with 

 " bronze " nowadays, but is, when untarnished, of a colour almost exactly 

 resembling fine gold. One of Mr. Brooke's examples, which had been carried 

 in the pocket of the finder for some time, and had so lost all its " Patina," 

 has precisely the appearance of being made of gold. 



