A HISTORY OF WARWICKSHIRE 



this description would not help to date the burial which on other 

 grounds may be referred to the close of the pagan period in this part of 

 England. 



In the museum of the county Natural History and Antiquarian 

 Society at Warwick is a remarkable brooch l (fig. 6) found near the 

 railway at Emscote Road, in the parish of St. Nicholas, Warwick. It 

 is sometimes called the Myton brooch from the suburb of that name, 

 and was discovered about 1852 by a labourer while digging a gravel pit, 

 a section of which showed 2 feet of gravel overlaid by 9 inches of soil. 

 It is supposed that there were several burials in the same locality, but 

 no exact details are available, and all that is known about the find is 

 that the brooch was associated with a skull, a large bead of crystal, and 

 part of a silver ring ornamented with heart-shaped impressions made 

 with a punch. 



The crystal * is of unusually large dimensions with facetted surface 

 and a central perforation that seems unnecessarily large for stringing as 

 a bead, and accords better with the common interpretation of these 

 objects as spindle-whorls. In this instance the edges show signs of wear, 

 but objects of this class were probably intended rather for use than 

 ornament, and the utilitarian nature of clay specimens with openings of 

 the same size is obvious. 



The Warwick Museum also contains five* enamelled discs* which 

 are of special interest, as their origin and date are as yet unascertained. 

 Reference to the plate will render a long description unnecessary, 

 and a partial section (fig. SA) will show the character of the hook 

 attached to the ring surrounding two of the five pieces, the third of this 

 pattern being without the setting. The design (fig. 8) is the same in 

 all three, consisting of a graceful combination of three flamboyant spirals 

 or trumpet-shaped curves, the sunk ground having been filled with 

 enamels of two or more colours, including red and green. 



These discs were used for attaching hooks to the side of a bronze 

 bowl, the animal head just overlapping the rim and thus enclosing a 

 loop perhaps for suspending the bowl by means of chains. So much may 

 be inferred from extant specimens of the Anglo-Saxon period, 5 as well as 

 from analogous mounts on Roman bowls or buckets of the fourth cen- 

 tury. 8 It is also clear that it was usual to insert another enamelled disc 

 within the foot-rim of the bowl, to be seen from below ; and the two 

 larger specimens found with the others at Chesterton, on the Fosse Way, 

 were doubtless so applied. The pattern in this case (fig. 9) consists of 

 eight closely wound spirals connected round a centre which was filled 



1 A coloured drawing is given in Akerman's Pagan Saxon Jam, pi. xx. fig. I. 

 * Figured in Journal of drchttologic al Institute, ix. 179. 

 8 Earlier accounts however mention only four. 



4 Two are illustrated by kind permission of the hon. curators. 



5 A list of known examples has been prepared by Mr. Romilly Allen, whose illustrated paper in 

 Arch<tokga, vol. Ivi., should be consulted. 



6 See for example Dr. Grempler's Der Fund von Sackrau (Breslau), pt. i, pi. iv. figs. 1,2; pts. 2 & 3, 

 pi. iv. fig. 6. 



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