Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/215

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SHOES FOUND IN BELGIUM.
187

that the articles had been put into it from some tomb and again buried. The previous year bones had been found in the place in which this collection was discovered.'[1] No drawings accompany the description.

fig. 53

In the Royal Museum of Antiquities at Brussels is a shoe, found in 1863, during excavations carried on at Wundrez-lez-Binche, Hainault. With it were several antiquities, and notably a bronze coin of Faustina (A.D. 175). Four inches in length and width, this specimen of farriery (fig. 53) has only four nail-holes, and though broad in the cover, is yet thin and light, and unprovided with calks. The outer border is even, the holes quadrilateral and well placed.

fig. 54

A very interesting discovery was made in 1848, during mining operations at Lede, a village near Alost, Eastern Flanders. Three shoes were found along with relics which authorities have stated to be Frankish, and to belong to about the 6th century. One of these relics is an earthenware vase (fig. 54), which certainly bears a striking likeness to one type of that ware pertaining to that age and country. The first horse-shoe we might designate a Romano-Frankish speci-

  1. Bulletin de l'Académic des Sciences de Belgique, vol. xiii. p. 193.