ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS 



Vessels of pottery rarely occur with these interments, but occasionally 

 fragments, seemingly buried as such, and described as ' hard ' and as 

 ' Romano-British,' have been found. The only other case of a perfect 

 vessel in these isolated interments was at Winster. Here two contracted 

 skeletons were found 9 feet apart in 1856. With the one were an iron 

 spear-head and the lower stone of a beehive-shaped quern ; with the 

 other, a small plain vessel of coarse pottery, a large spear- head and small 

 instrument of iron, a large frit bead, and the upper half of the same 

 quern. 1 Two upper stones of the same shape were found with an ex- 

 tended skeleton in a small barrow near Taddington in 1845, ^ e one 

 at the head and the other at the feet. 2 Quartz and other pebbles have 

 frequently been found with these interments. In one remarkable 

 example near Alsop-in-the-Dale, such a pebble was held in the left hand, 3 

 but they rarely have any definite position with regard to the skeletons. 

 These, the potsherds, and the occasional chippings of flint, had certainly 

 a religious significance. 



Of a similar nature, probably, were the bronze bowls occasionally 

 found with these interments. With a late secondary interment at Grind- 

 low near Over H addon, was a 'bowl of thin bronze very neatly made, 

 with a simple hollow moulding round its edge,' and near it was a cir- 

 cular enamel in a silver frame.* Reference has already been made to 

 two or three similar enamels at Benty Grange. Another, with a ' hook 

 attached in the form of a serpent's head, probably for suspension,' 

 ' a shallow basin of thin brass,' and other objects, were found near the 

 head of an extended interment on the Garratt Piece near Middleton- 

 by-Youlgreave, already referred to. Similar discs and remains of thin 

 bowls have been found associated together in graves of the period else- 

 where in the country. As the discs usually have the hook-like process 

 attached, they have been regarded as pendants of some sort ; but years 

 ago the late Mr. C. Roach Smith, F.S.A., suggested that they were 

 mountings of the bowls, and recently Mr. J. Romilly Allen, F.S.A., 

 has collected evidence which proves this beyond a doubt. 8 He finds 

 that a characteristic feature of these bowls is a hollow moulding below 

 the lip ; that the hooked discs, three or four to a bowl, were attached in 

 such a manner that the hollow of the hooks faced that of the rim, and 

 thus provided loops for as many suspension rings ; and that usually a 

 larger enamelled disc was attached to the bottom, and sometimes other 

 decorative devices to the sides. The hook invariably terminates in a 

 grotesque head, and the disc appears to represent, or rather replace, 

 the animal's body. Mr. Allen derives the decoration from two sources. 

 In the more elaborate discs, like that from the Garratt Piece, the patterns 

 may be divided into two parts : (i) closely coiled spirals placed at equal 

 distances apart in symmetrical positions with regard to each other ; and 

 (2) a background of flamboyant work diversified with almond-shaped 



1 Diggings, p. 98. * yestiges, p. 85. 3 Ibid. p. 67. 



* Diggings, p. 48 ; Jewitt's Grave Mounds and their Contents, p. 284. 



* Arch. Ivi. 39. 



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