ROMANO-BRITISH SUFFOLK 

 APPENDIX 



Note on a Hoard of Bronze and Iron Objects found at Santon Downham 



A discovery at Santon Downham hitherto unpublished throws some light on the chronology of 

 Early British antiquities, and by kind permission of Baron A. von Hiigel is here included under 

 Roman Remains, as the series must be dated by the latest specimen in it. It is a hoard of scrap 

 bronze together with a few iron tools, all found in a large bronze cauldron by a labourer, who 

 brought the whole to the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology in 1897, and was himself responsible 

 for the damage to the containing vessel. There can be no question that the miscellaneous collection 

 now placed on exhibition was made by a worker in metals for recasting ; and as there are no objects 

 obviously of another age, we may assume that the cauldron and its contents were practically con- 

 temporary. Some of the specimens had been worn out and subsequently repaired before being 

 scrapped ; others had been accidentally broken and were either unworthy or incapable of repair ; 

 but we cannot credit the itinerant tinker with a taste for antiquities, and must assign the deposit of 

 the hoard to the early years of Roman rule in Britain. It would be unwise to call this a period 

 of transition from the late Celtic to the Roman style, as there are indications that British art sur- 

 vived the Roman occupation and started on a new lease of life in the Anglo-Saxon period. In 

 south-east England, however, the native craftsmen could not hold out against Roman influence ; 

 and the Santon Downham hoard illustrates the Romanization of Britain at the expense of native 

 traditions and craftsmanship. 



Attention may first be directed to the large vessel, made up of thin bronze plates, that would 

 generally be described as a cauldron, but cannot have been used for cooking, and may perhaps be 

 added to the list of water-clocks found in Britain. It closely resembles one from Baschurch, Shrop- 

 shire,' now in the British Museum, that has a small round hole in the base ; and comparison with 

 other vessels so perforated suggests that they were used by the ancient Britons to measure time, as 

 was done till quite recently in India and Ceylon. The vessel is comparatively light, and is placed 

 on the surface of water, which gradually percolates through the bottom and causes the vessel to sink 

 in a specified time. It is then raised and emptied by an attendant, who announces the hour or 

 other division of the day and replaces it on the surface, to repeat the process. The present example 

 has, however, no such perforation at the present time, as the centre of the base has been cut out and 

 a large circular patch of bronze added, just like a large example from Walthamstow in the national 

 collection.' The extreme thinness of the bronze can only have been attained by continual ham- 

 mering and firing, and suggests a delicate and important function for the vessel, which has a rim 

 and two ring-handles of iron, and consists of an upright collar and swelling body with rounded base, 

 the greatest diameter being 1 8^ in., the height 12^ in., and width of mouth 1 7 in.' At the 

 junction of the collar with the body is a band of what might be taken for rivets, but the small bosses 

 were produced by punching both thicknesses together from the inside at short intervals. 



In this worn-out water-clock (if such it was) had been packed a curious collection of oddments 

 that may be roughly classified as of British and Roman work. The former are specially interesting 

 because of rarer occurrence, as well as of greater artistic value, and are for the most part well pre- 

 served. The best specimens are two open-work bronze plates, each with a pair of loops at the back 

 for attachment to leather straps. They belong to a well-known type, and doubtless served to 

 decorate chariot horses. The surface of both is adorned with sunk enamel (champlevd) that is now 

 somewhat discoloured, but was originally of a uniform red,* in graceful scrolls that are peculiar to 

 late Celtic art. In one can be seen delicate engraved scrollwork on the bronze ground between 

 the enamel patches, but the surface of the other is somewhat corroded. The edges are lobed, but 

 both are roughly 3 in. square, and formed of stout metal. There is another example of late Celtic 

 scrollwork on a thick bronze disk with tang, and there is a bronze joint for two straps with a sunk 

 rosette. Part of a horse's bridle-bit belongs to a recognized British type well represented in the 

 Polden Hill series at the British Museum ; and there are several moulded terminals of bronze, some 

 of which have had iron pins attached in the same way as the so-called linch-pins from Stanwick, 

 Yorkshire. 



' Pnc. Soc. Jntiq. xxi, 324, fig. 5, where details of British and foreign examples are given. 

 ' Ibid. 329, where others similarly patched are cited. 



' Corresponding measurements of the Baschurch specimen are lyf in., 12 in., andiyfin. 

 * Some idea of the colour and design may be derived from the Guide to the Early Iron Age (Brit. Mus.), 

 fig. 3 on plate opposite p. 90 ; fig. i has an outline more liice those described above. 



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