A DESOEIPTION OF 



SOME ANCIENT GOLD ORNAMENTS 



FOUND IN DORSETSHIRE. 



By the Rev. R. ROBERTS. 





HE three articles represented by tlie accompanying 

 pliotograpli^' are solid gold, of the finest quality, and 

 1 are considered by antiquaries to have been personal 

 ornaments worn by British chieftains long before the Christian 

 era. They consist of a small armlet, a torque for the neck made 

 up of two circlets, and a third article, in shape something like 

 an oyster-shell, with a deep concavity, and this is supposed to 

 have been one of a pair of ornaments for the breast. It is 

 different in construction from the others, being composed of two 

 laminse of gold laid one upon the other, and as the projecting 

 point on the outside has been fractured, the inner lamina is 

 been laid bare. This kind of ornament appears to be very rare, 

 since in the famous collection belonging to the National Museum, 

 Dawson street, Dublin, only one specimen exists, and that one in 

 every way inferior. 



The torque also has suffered some damage, for each of its two 

 extremities, shaped like small extinguishers, have been soldered 

 and turned from their ]proper direction, in which one was crooked 

 back over the other, and thus a rude kind of fastening was 

 formed, keeping the double circlet in its place on the neck of the 

 wearer. These three articles were discovered some time between 



* Frontispiece. 



