Notes. 611 



measures '2|in. in length by l|in. in breadth at the handle end. The 

 blade is quite plain, with a broad bevel at each edge, tapering to a 

 fairly sharp point. It had apparently three rivets, of which the centre 

 one is broken away. The other two rivets remain. The mark of the 

 handle shows a straight lino across the blade, without any semi-lunar 

 indentation. The blade is wonderfully preserved, and the edge is 

 sharp enough to cut with now. It is mentioned as No. 4G in " List of 

 Bronze objects found in Wiltshire," Wilts Arch. Mckj., xxxvii., 12:i. 

 {Illustrated.) 



(3). The iron blade of a clasp knife, 4|in. long, with very thick 

 back, with a label attached to it, " a Knife discovered near a barrow at 

 Avebury." This may be mediaeval. 



(4). From the supposed site of Verlucio, near Wans House, in the 

 parish of Chittoe, a pottery roundel, fragments of thin bronze, and a 

 fragment of a thin glass vessel A roughly circular luni]) of lead bearing 

 on one side the impress of cloth very clearly, is probably one half of a 

 seal used to secure packages, &c.' A pretty little fiat octagonal bronze 

 brooch, l^in. in diam., has projections at each angle, the surface having 

 been enamelled in red and blue with an eight-foiled ornament round a 

 circular centre. This brooch was found, says a label, in 1828. {Illus- 

 trated.) All these objects are Roman. 



(5). From the Roman V^illa in " West Park" arable field at Brom- 

 hani, immediately on the east side of the road from Calne to Devizes 

 l-niile south of Wans, which was opened by Mr. J. Stoughton Money 

 in September, 1840 {See Wilts. Arch. Mag.., xix., 299 — 302), come 

 eleven very perfect specimens of bone pins, eight of them with plain 

 knob heads ; one with a larger " writhen knop " head, which has the 

 appearance of being of ivory ; one with an oblong facetted head ; and 

 one with a small knob and collar. They vary in length from 2^in. to 

 4Mn. {Illustrated.) 



(6). A series of Saxon objects'- found with a skeleton near Milden- 



' For similar leaden seals see Curie's A Roman Frontier Post, p. 309, pi. 

 Ixxxii., tigs. 19, 20. They are described as " circular discs of lead tused 

 together on a loop," and were used for securing packages, as indeed such 

 lead seals are used to the present day. 



A valuable and exhaustive pajjcr on " the Distribution of the Anglo- 

 Saxon Brooch in relation to the Battle of Bedford, A.D. 571," by E. Thurlow 

 Ueds, F.S.A., appears in Archa" >lo(jia, LXIIL, pp. 159—202, 1912. The 

 author gives references, with their present place of preservation, to all known 

 specimens of these brooches found in England, three hundred and ninety in 

 number. These brooches are found with few exceptions east of a line drawn 

 from the Wash to the Severn, and Mr. Leeds distinguishes between two 

 areas, {a) the western, containing all those cemeteries situated on river 

 systems which flow southward, extending from the Thames to the Severn, 

 (6) the eastern, comprising cemeteries associated with the rivers which empty 

 ' into the Wash. His investigations go to ])rovc that the Saucer Brooch can 

 I no longer be regarded ;is it has been in the past as an ornament jieculiar to 

 I the West Saxons. There is a large district in the Eastern Miillandsand 



■i A -1 



