A HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE 



It may be added that antiquaries have been able to identify three 

 distinct kinds of hoards, viz. : (i) those which appear to consist of the 

 treasured property of some individual, who having buried his treasures 

 in the earth for safety, failed for some reason to regain possession of 

 them ; (2) those which comprised the property of a trader, and included 

 new implements in considerable numbers fit for use ; and (3) those 

 which represented the stock-in-trade of a bronze-founder, containing 

 often fragments of implements, worn-out implements and lumps of 

 rough metal. To the last class belongs the important hoard found at 

 Yattendon. 



The following are brief particulars of some of the other more 

 important Bronze Age discoveries in Berkshire. 



A circular buckler or shield of great interest was found in the bed 

 of the river Isis in 1836, and is now in the British Museum. An 

 account 1 of the discovery written by Mr. John Gage, F.R.S., Director 

 of the Society of Antiquaries, gives the following precise details as to 

 the place where the discovery was made. The buckler was found * on 

 the lower margin of the pool of the Little Wittenham or Day's lock 

 upon the river Isis, about half a mile above the junction of that river 

 with the Thame stream, midway between Little Wittenham bridge and 

 the weir connected with the lock, about one mile to the westward of 

 Dorchester, in Oxfordshire, a hundred and fifty or two hundred yards 

 from the western end of an earthwork called Dyke hills, and three- 

 quarters of a mile from the intrenchment upon Sinodun or Little 

 Wittenham hill.' The chief point about this is that the buckler was 

 found on the ancient bed of the river Isis, very near if not absolutely 

 upon a spot where it was fordable. 



The buckler is about 1 3 inches in diameter, and nearly, but not quite, 

 circular in form. In the centre is a large hemispherical boss or umbo 

 giving room for the hand to grasp the handle at the back. This boss 

 is surrounded by twin projecting rings. A circular series of fourteen 

 convex bosses, and an outer series of twenty-three bosses fill up the 

 surface, the two series of bosses being separated by a raised ring. 



The age of this shield is uncertain, but it may belong to the later 

 part of this period. 



Sir John Evans 3 writes : ' The raised bosses have all been wrought in 

 the metal with the exception of four, two of which form the rivets for 

 the handle across the umbo, and two others serve as the rivets or pivots 

 for two small straps or buttons of bronze on the inner side of the 

 buckler. Such buttons occur on several other examples, but it is 

 difficult to determine the exact purpose which they served. From the 

 pains taken in this instance to conceal the heads of these pivots on the 

 outside, by making them take the form and place of bosses, it would 

 appear that they were necessary adjuncts of the shield, and possibly in 

 some way connected with a lining for it. Such a lining can hardly 

 have been of wood, or many rivet or pin-holes would have been 



* Arch, xxvii. 298. Evans, op. cit. 344. 



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