Armstrong — Catalogue of Silver and Ecclesiastical Antiquities. 289 



Lancashire, and consisted of a large number of silver ingots, tores, 

 bracelets, fragments of brooches, etc., also about 7000 coins 'chiefly 

 Anglo-Saxon, French, and some Oriental) ; from the dates of these it was 

 estimated that the hoard was deposited about the year 910 a.d. A similar 

 hoard was discovered at Sandwick, Orkney, in 1858, including Oriental coins of 

 the early part of the tenth century. The island of Gotland, where numerous 

 discoveries of silver ornaments and oriental coins have been made, was an 

 important centre for trade with the east established by the Vikings, and from 

 the close of the ninth century large quantities of silver and goods of various 

 kinds were brought by way of the Caspian Sea across Eussia to the Scandi- 

 navian countries, and thence to Britain and Ireland, in the wake of the 

 Viking expeditions. A good deal of the silver was doubtless reworked in the 

 Scandinavian lands, but the ornamentation of many of the objects has an 

 eastern rather than a western appearance. 



The antiquities of exactly similar character discovered in Ireland and 

 described below were probably derived from deposits of which the records 

 have been lost. The illustrations will show the types of the different orna- 

 ments, and it will be noticed that the hammer only has been used in the 

 making of the greater part, and that the decoration has been produced by 

 means of punches of very simple form, the more complicated patterns being 

 obtained by repeating the same punch or by the combination of two or more, 

 also that none of the various objects bear any decoration approaching human 

 or zoomorphic forms ; this in itself is an argument for their eastern origin, as 

 the depiction of human or animal forms is not permitted by the religion of 

 Mohammed. 



Plate XXV, fig. 1, shows, one-half the actual size, an ingot (no. 3) ; it 

 measures '6-^ inches in length, and is § of an inch in thickness ; it weighs 

 2 oz. 16 dwts. 18 grs. It has been cast in a mould made of metal, or possibly 

 of baked clay, and is marked with a cross in relief. An ingot of the same 

 type and also marked with a cross was found at Cuerdale, and is figured 

 in the description of that find. 1 The ingots vary much in weight, and 

 probably many of them were cast in sand. 



On Plate XXV, fig. 5, is shown the pattern on a bracelet (no. 62). The 

 central decoration is produced by placing triangles enclosing three pellets 

 apex to apex, and thus making shapes like an hour-glass. The bracelet 

 measures 2-|-§ inches in diameter, and weighs 2 oz. 8 dwts. 19 grs. The next 

 example, Plate XXV, fig. 6 (no. 64), shows various forms of punches, and the 

 hour-glass pattern is again used. The bracelet measures '2\ inches in diameter, 



1 Archaeological Journal, vol. iv, p. 112, fig. 1. 



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