144 



Haakon Schetelig-, 



[No. 8 



On the other hand the missing- of some details cannot in all cases 

 be interpreted as indicating a later date, as both the missing of 

 marked details of the form and the missing of ornaments must be 

 counted for by the cheap and careless workmanship generally ob- 

 served in these small brooches. A better help for the fixing of 

 the date is found in another fact; in the latter half of the 6th cent. 

 similar small and cheap bronze brooches (for the most part of the 

 same form as fig. 181 below) were still in use, but now an orna- 

 mentation in relief is generally met with even in the case of these 

 small brooches (compare fig. 192), and it is therefore very probable 



Fig. 177. Vi- 



Fig. 178. '/i- 



that most of the specimens not decorated in that way belong to an 

 earlier part of the century. Respecting the question of fixing the 

 date more precisely, it is difficult to say more than that these 

 imitations, generally speaking, must be a little younger than the 

 large and fine brooches from which they are copied, but that the 

 difference of time cannot be considerable. 



Thus a brooch from Vestergøtland (fig. 177) \) cannot be later 



*) Brannhem, Gudhem sn. Vestergotland. Stockholm Museum, no. 11052. 

 Månadsblad 1900, p. 148, figs. 35 and 36. 



