ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS 



hollow moulding that is a constant feature of these bowls. Narrow bronze 

 strips, forming a flat circle and decorated with sunk red enamel {champ/eve), 

 have also been found with enamelled escutcheons in association with a bowl of 

 this kind at Old Park, Dover ; ''*' but no perfect specimen has yet come to light. 

 They were evidently suspended by three chains and meant to be sometimes 

 seen from below, as enamelled discs have been found in the ' kick,' outside 

 the base. 



The body of the bowl is in nearly every case of extremely thin metal, 

 beaten out in a manner that must have necessitated many firings ; and the 

 result is that they are found, if at all, in fragments. The designs on the escut- 

 cheons, which are generally decorated with red enamel, are for the most part 

 varieties of the Celtic trumpet pattern, seen at its best in the early Irish 

 illuminated MSS.; but the Mildenhall specimens seem to be a barbaric version 

 of the classical inclosed palmette and, in this respect, stand quite alone. 

 Though many bowls or their fragments have been found in England, their 

 date is not definitely fixed : but the period 550-650 suggested by some 

 of the circumstances and associated objects may be provisionally accepted, 

 though it leaves unexplained the occurrence of Celtic enamel and scroll- 

 patterns which are generally supposed to have been abolished in Britain by 

 the Roman occupation and to have survived only in Ireland where the Roman 

 arms never penetrated. It may be added that one heart-shaped escutcheon 

 of plain bronze, with the ring worn thin, has been found at Icklingham 

 and probably belonged to a bowl of this kind, and a smaller lozenge-shaped 

 specimen from Lakenheath, with a movable ring in the hook above it, may 

 also be cited in illustration. Plain specimens like the former are known from 

 Sarre, Kent ; and Barton, Cambridgeshire, while the latter somewhat resembles 

 one from Faversham, Kent, in the British Museum. 



The sites of discoveries on the coast were probably some distance 

 inland during the early Saxon period, and a valuable find at Bacton, in 

 Norfolk, was indirectly due to the encroachment of the sea. In Suffolk 

 the fate of Dunwich is at once recalled to the memory, but finds there are 

 almost exclusively mediaeval. At Pakefield, just south of Lowestoft, an 

 interesting discovery was made in 1758 on Bloodmore Hill, and recorded by 

 the worthy Douglas." In a barrow a skeleton was found buried with a coin 

 pendant of gold, and another, set with an onyx intaglio, strung on a necklet 

 of rough garnets. The coin mounted in a hoop was of Avitus, who was 

 declared Emperor in Gaul in 455, but resigned and became Bishop of 

 Placentia ; on the reverse was conob, as in the Bacton pendant,'^* but the 

 legend has yet to be explained by numismatists. The onyx intaglio 

 was of Roman workmanship and represented a warrior armed with a spear 

 beside a horse to right. Coins of the Lower Empire are also mentioned, 

 including one of Claudius II (268-70), evidently inscribed imp. clavdivs 

 p F AVG (oriental crown on head to right) and victoria avg (Victory flying to 

 right with wreath and branch) ; and Douglas illustrates a crystal engraved with 



"* This and other examples not included in the late Mr. Romilly Allen's list (^Arch. Ivi, 49) are published 

 in Proc. Soc. Jntiq. xxii, with illustrations. 



" Nenia Britannka, 8 n. and 82 (crystal, pi. xx, fig. 11); MS. Min. Soc. Antiq. viii, 318 (sketches) ; 

 /Irch. xxxii, 65 n. 



" F.C.H. Norf. i, 341, figs. 2, za, on coloured plate. For conob see Wroth, Imperial Byzantine Coins 

 (Brit. Mus.), p. xcix. 



347 



