ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS 



safely inferred from the description quoted above. The date must remain 

 uncertain, and if of the Anglo-Saxon period the fragments were more 

 probably influenced by Roman models, of which several are extant, than 

 by the uniformly punched patterns of the Viking period. Though other 

 family coins have been found on Anglo-Saxon sites, the coins adapted 

 for pendants are generally of the Lower Empire. 



A silvered base metal coin of Carus found at East or West Walton^ 

 may be compared with small base pieces of Valens and Gratian found at 

 Stow Heath, Suffolk,^ and with another of the Emperor Tacitus (275-6) 

 hung on a ring with two glass beads and found with Prankish remains 

 next a skeleton in a grave outside Cologne.' It is easy to imagine that 

 the busts on the imperial coinage would exercise some sort of fascination 

 on the Teuton whose early attempts at representing the human face were 

 singularly unsuccessful, as witness the incised brooches and embossed 

 bucket-mounts of the period. But gold would fascinate them more, 

 and Norfolk furnishes two remarkable examples of the coins called solidi 

 in the richest of settings. 



The first is from the north-east coast and the circumstances of the 

 discovery may be given in the words of Mr. Stevenson, who pub- 

 lished it in the Norfolk Archceology * and in the Numismatic Chronicle!^ 

 At the close of the year 1845 a woman was walking along the beach 

 from Bacton to Mundesley, and on approaching the boundaries of the 

 latter parish saw something that glittered lying on the shore near high- 

 water mark. Having taken up and disengaged it from a branch of sea- 

 weed in which it was imbedded she carried it home, not appreciating its 

 worth beyond that of a small roundlet of brass, and of course totally 

 unaware of its claim to peculiar regard. The appearance of the object 

 however, thus accidentally brought to light, led even the simple unskilled 

 finder herself to think that it must be a ' curiosity.' Luckily escaping 

 further injury it passed into the possession of Miss Gurney at North 

 Repps, who generously presented it to the British Museum, where it 

 now figures in a remarkable series of Anglo-Saxon jewellery. 



The find proved to be a pendant enclosing a gold coin of the 

 Emperor Mauricius. The obverse (fig. 2a) has the imperial head to right, 

 while on the reverse side (fig. 2b) is the usual legend, victoria augustorum, 

 the plural referring to Mauricius (582-602) and Theodosius, who was 

 made a colleague in the empire in 590. A final explanation of the letters 

 CONOB has yet to be found by numismatists,* but the mint-mark ar indicates 

 that Aries in southern France was the place of mintage of the original. 

 Not that this solidus is a forgery in the usual sense of the word, though 

 its appearance is certainly against it. More probably it is a copy made 

 by one of the Merovingian kings who took the coinage of the eastern 



* Numismatic Chnnicle, new series, vol. v. Proceedings, p. 9. 



* Journal of the British Archieolo^cal Association, vol. v. p. 361. 



^ Coloured drawings of the objects are given in Collectanea Antiqua, vol. ii. pi. xxxv. 



* Vol. i. p. 194. The jewel is figured at p. 105 of that volume. ^ Vol. ix. p. 131, plate. 



* Briefly noticed in Sir H. Ellis's paper on the jewel, Archteologta, vol. xxxii. p. 64. 



341 



