A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



found in the neighbourhood of Stade, near the mouth of the Elbe. 

 Another with a somewhat longer neck* came from the Stavanger district 

 in the south-west of Norway ; and a third/ of the same shape but about 

 half the size of the others, came to light in the Danish island of Funen. 

 Dr. Rygh states that only six specimens are known, and Dr. Sophus 

 Miiller assigns the Danish example to the earliest years of the post- 

 Roman period, not later than the fifth century. There need be therefore 

 little hesitation in regarding the Addington urn, which was presented to 

 the British Museum by Mr. H. Walters, as one of the earliest Teutonic 

 relics in the country. 



Besides the urns already mentioned as having been found in the 

 cemetery at Marston Hill where cremation was certainly not the usual 

 practice, there are Anglo-Saxon sites in Northamptonshire where there 

 are no traces of any other manner of disposing of the dead than by 

 cremation. 



In addition to the comb already referred to, fragments of a vase of 

 green glass were found at Pitsford in 1882, along with fourteen pottery 

 vases of various sizes, some of them containing small and apparently burnt 

 bones. The comb is characteristic of this mode of burial, but other 

 objects are unusual ; and a sketch by Sir Henry Dryden of the glass 

 fragment, which is in the form of a hollow claw, is sufficient to show 

 that the vase belonged to a well-known class frequently met with in 

 Kentish graves of this period and more rarely in some other English 

 counties and on the continent. These delicate vases' are mostly of 

 olive-green or amber coloured glass, and generally contract slightly at 

 the neck and foot ; from the centre project two or three bands of hollow 

 claws pointing downwards, while thin threads are applied above and 

 below in spirals, and sometimes vertically on the claws. The result is 

 an elaborate drinking cup which, to judge by the number preserved, 

 must have been a common object in the pagan period. 



At Kettering have been found fragments of cinerary urns, and part 

 of a circular brooch of a kind well represented in the remains from 

 Kempston, Long Wittenham, etc., with a thin embossed gilt disc attached 

 to the circular bronze base. In the centre is a hole that was no doubt 

 originally filled with a slab of garnet. 



Two miles to the south-east, several cinerary and other urns have 

 been found at Barton Seagrave, which with an iron shield-boss orna- 

 mented with a disc (fig. 9) of bronze-gilt, a string of glass beads, three 

 small cruciform brooches (fig. 8) and minor objects are now preserved 

 in the national collection. The circumstances of the discovery are not 

 recorded, but the remains correspond with other finds of the period in 

 this central district of the county, and include a typical series of sepul- 

 chral pottery, illustrating the variety in shape and ornamentation of the 



1 This also contained burnt bones, and is figured in Rygh's Norike Oldsager, fig. 357, French 

 edition, p. 60. 



2 Sophus Mailer, NorJische Altertiimer, vol. ii. p. 107, fig. 78. 



3 Typical specimens are figured in de Baye's Industrial Arts, p. 109, pi. xv., and references given. 



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