Anglo-Saxon Pottery. 125 



grave, at the feet of the skeleton of a gigantic warrior, was 

 found one of these urns, containing two bronze fibulse, a comb, 

 a number of beads, a pair of shears, flints and steel, and a bronze 

 ring. I mention this to show that these urns were not neces- 

 sarily used only to contain the ashes of the dead, though they 

 were used for this purpose by people among whom the prac- 

 tice of cremation prevailed. One vase found in a grave in 

 the cemetery at Selzen exactly resembled the Anglo-Saxon 

 vessel given in our first group, No. 3, of which, at least, one 

 further example has been found in England. Fig. 1 is an urn 

 procured by Mr. Roach Smith at Cologne, and engraved in his 

 Collectanea Antigua, vol. ii., plate xxxv. ; it is now in the 

 museum of Lord Londesborough at Grimstone Park in York- 

 shire. It was stated to have been found in a grave with a 

 skeleton and other objects, on the outside of the gate of St. 

 Severinus, at Cologne. In form it resembles the urn, Fig. 6, 

 on our plate, and is, like it, slate- coloured, with a similar orna- 

 ment of circular stamps. 



Figs. 2 and 3 of our group No. II. are Frankish urns 

 obtained by the Abbe Cochet from his extensive excavations at 

 Londinieres in Normandy, and show at a glance the identity of 

 the Frankish pottery with the Germanic as well as with the 

 Anglo-Saxon. The first of these is surrounded with a row of 

 the well-known bosses, which are equally characteristic of the 

 three divisions of this Teutonic pottery, Anglo-Saxon, Frankish, 

 and Alemannic. Above these bosses is an ornament identical 

 with that of the East- Anglian urn with the sepulchral inscrip- 

 tion, given in our first group, Fig. 1. The urn represented 

 in Fig. 3 has an ornament which is evidently an imitation of the 

 egg-and-tongue ornament so common on the Roman pottery. 



The Abbe Cochet has collected in the course of his excava- 

 tions in Normandy several hundreds of these Frankish urns, 

 which all present the same general character. He states that 

 the prevailing colour is black, produced, as is proved by che- 

 mical analysis, by a varnish of plumbago, which, either from 

 being so long buried in the earth or from some other cause, is 

 easily washed off, and which varies in shade from a very deep 

 tint to almost gray. The pottery of the darker tints is usually 

 the finest in texture and the richest in ornament, while the 

 gray or nearly gray pottery is usually thicker, coarser, and 

 plainer. The ornaments are almost always stamped, or incised, 

 and consist, to use the Abbe's own words, of " zig-zags, St. 

 Andrew's crosses, the teeth of saws, fern leaves, circles, plaited 

 work, ovals, dotted work/' and a variety " of other ornament 

 well known from the Saxon and Carlovingian monuments." 

 He states that they were usually placed at the feet of the skele- 

 tons, and that they are found either empty, or filled with the 



