A HISTORY OF KENT 



bury, who, between the years 1757 and 1773, had carried out most 

 successful excavations in his own neighbourhood. Exact records were 

 kept, and the antiquities carefully preserved, but it was not till 1856 that 

 his MS. was published,' under the editorship of Charles Roach Smith, 

 who died in 1890, and left behind many important papers' dealing with 

 the Anglo-Saxon period. The Faussett collection was acquired by Mr. 

 Joseph Mayer in 1850, and munificently presented to the Liverpool Public 

 Museum, where it is now exhibited. Other contributions to the archaeo- 

 logy of Kent are referred to in the following pages, and special mention 

 must be made of the Archaeologia Cajitiana, a series of volumes issued by 

 the Kent Archaeological Society since its foundation in 1857 ' ^^^ "o 

 attempt has been hitherto made to present as a whole the unexampled 

 series of Anglo-Saxon remains from Kent, with the exception of the 

 Archaeological Survey of the county prepared for the Society of Anti- 

 quaries by Mr. Geo. Payne, and published by that body in 1889. 



Inscriptions dating from the pagan Anglo-Saxon period are unfor- 

 tunately rare ; but characters belonging to the primitive alphabet (or 

 rzthtr futhorc) of Northern Europe occur on several objects found in Kent, 

 though the county has not in this respect proved so prolific as Northum- 

 bria. It may be observed in passing that runes are letters, originally 

 adapted for engraving on wood or stone, and are quite distinct from the 

 interlaced or animal-ornament common in northern Europe during the 

 post-Roman period. Several Kentish examples were collected and dis- 

 cussed by Rev. Daniel Haigh ^ ; but, apart from coins on which these 

 characters are often found, only the follow- 

 ing can be definitely referred to the county 

 — a jewelled brooch of silver formerly in 

 the Bateman collection ; a sword-pommel 

 from Gilton ; two sepulchral stones from 

 Sandwich, and a stone slab from Dover, the 

 last-named belonging rather to the series of 

 Early Christian monuments, and therefore 

 not fully described here. 



The brooch here illustrated, one of a 

 pair now in the British Museum, is said to 

 have been found in Kent, but has all the 

 appearance of an exotic, perhaps from S. 

 Germany or Hungary. The garnet cell-work 

 is in excellent condition, and the silver retains 

 some gilding, while the ground-ornament be- 

 longs to the fifth century. At the back of the 

 foot are scratched the Runic characters here 

 reproduced, which have been pronounced 

 unintelligible by Mr. W. H. Stevenson. 



Fig. I. Jewelled Brooch with 

 Engraved Runes ({). 



' Inveniorium Sepulchrale, quoted below as Inv. Sep. 



2 Several were included in his Collectanea Antiqua (7 vols. 184S-80); quoted below as Coll. Ant. 



* Arch. Cant. viii. 164. 



340 



