612 Notes. 



hall in 1827, and labelled as " given by T. Wilford " in that year. They 

 comprise a pair of remarkably fine saucer-shaped brooches, afsin. in j 

 diameter. They are of gilt bronze and the gilding on one of them is 

 still quite bright. The ornament is a cross within an oval surrounded 

 by a twisted wreath, all chased in considerable relief. The pin, I 

 apparently of iron, in both cases is lost. They are of thick metal and 

 weigh from "l^ to 2^ ounces each. A curious bronze pin, Sin. in length, 

 plain except for an eye Jin. from the head, is unlike anything from I 

 Saxon interments with which I am acquainted. The eye may have 

 been intended to hold a ring. {Illustrated.) 



A single-edged iron knife, the tang lost, 4|in. in length. 

 A finger bone of the skeleton stained green, apparently from contact i 

 with a bronze finger ring. This ring has been lost, though one of the j 

 labels states definitely that a ring was found on the finger. 



A necklace of twenty-one beads, of which five are pieces of amber of 

 irregular form. The remainder are of vitreous paste, of various sizes and 

 forms. The largest is a cylindrical glass bead i^-in. in length, with a 

 feathered pattern of fine yellow and red lines permeating the whole 

 substance of the bead. Two rather fiat beads are of very dark blue 

 paste with an irregular zigzag of white on the edge, precisely similar 

 to No. 6, Plate LIU,, Cat. of Antiquities in Museum, Pt. II. A single 

 smaller bead is of whitish material inlaid'with light blue paste in an 

 interlacing wave pattern round the side. The smallest bead is of plain 

 yellow paste, well formed. Nine are small barrel-shaped beads, 

 irregularly made and of various sizes, all of a red brick coloured opaque 

 paste inlaid with a rough double wave pattern enclosing dots. One of 

 these beads has the whole of the pattern impressed on its surface but 

 without a trace of the yellow or white paste with which the pattern is 

 formed in all the other beads. The bead is a very perfect one and it 

 hardly seems likely that the filling can have been entirely lost, so that 

 probably this bead was never completed. It is interesting as showing! 

 the method by which the ornamentation was applied. {Illustrated.) 



This series of Saxon grave-goods is a notable addition to the Museum, 

 and may be compared with the similar brooches, &c., from Basset 

 Cambridgeshire where they occur in some numbers. The brooches of the 

 two areas, however, differ somewhat in construction and design. Those of 

 the eastern area comprise more of the " applied " type, and zoomorphic 

 designs predominate. In those of the western area (chiefly the Valley of 

 the Thames and Wessex), the true " Saucer Brooch " and geometric designs| 

 are most common. Mr. Leeds considers that the evidence of the broochesj 

 goes to prove that there was an occupation of the eastern area on the upper 

 reaches of the Nen, the Cam, and the Ouse, by a people who were more 

 nearly akin to the West Saxons of Wessex than to East Anglians of the 

 eastern counties. 



The Wiltshire examples noted by him, include four from Basset Down, 

 and two from Mildenhall, now at Devizes, four from Harnham Hill, in the 

 British Museum, and three from Kemble, now at Liverpool. It should be 

 noted that his list does not include the diminutive brooches of the same char- 

 acter known as "Button Brooches," but only the larger "Saucer Brooches." 



