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. Å 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 
å ar SI 
Fig. 177. 2%. 
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 åa brooch from Vestergøtland (fig. 177)") cannot be later 
1) Brunnhem, Gudhem sn. Vestergötland. Stockholm Museum, no. 11052. 
Månadsblad 1900, p. 148, figs. 35 and 36. 
