A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE obtained from a cemetery at Mount Batten' near Plymouth in 1865 is figured in Archaologia, vol. xl. plate xxx., one found at Sandy in Bedfordshire is now in a museum at Bedford, another one in the Gloucester Museum* was found near Birdlip Hill on the Cotswolds. The fourth came from some graves in the parish of St. Keverne in Cornwall, and the engraved pattern on the back of this specimen so closely resembles that on the locket of the Hunsbury sword-sheath that it might have been executed by the same artist. The last one is in the Mayer collection at Liverpool ; it is not known whether it was found in England. There are also a bronze pin, 3I inches long, having a twist in the shank which is peculiar to this period ; a similar shaped pin was found in the so-called Danes' Graves near Driffield, only the ring part bore traces of enamel ; a spoon supposed to have been used for medicinal purposes ; four rings (two of which are ornamented with knobs) belonging to horse harness ; there are several of this kind in the British Museum among the Polden Hill remains, and another from Hamden Hill is figured in vol. xxi. of Archaologia ; fragments of an article the use of which is not determined ; this is a hollow ring enclosing a circle of 2 inches in diameter, which was filled with a thin plate of perforated bronze ; two whetstones, one having a hole for suspension ; light spindle whorls of various kinds of stone ; and remains of more than 100 beehive querns or millstones, some having an iron drill fixed in them, which held the two portions together when grinding ; and in several pits were found remains of charred corn. Up to the time of the excavations at Hunsbury the majority of the ancient British pottery found in Britain was obtained from burial places and for the most part belonged to the Bronze age. This pottery it is usual to classify or arrange in four groups, which have already been mentioned in dealing with the Bronze age. Now nearly all the pottery from our camp was for domestic purposes with the exception of two small vessels like the so-called incense cups — these are small shallow vessels not unlike salt cellars in form ; they are both ornamented with rude indentations — and one other vessel which also throws back as it were to the Bronze age. This resembles in shape some of the drinking cups figured in Jewitt's Ceramic Art : the lower portion is globular and ornamented with an incised pattern, it is contracted in the middle and slightly expands at the mouth ; it is of much ruder make than those drinking cups of the Bronze age which the writer has seen. Of the ornamented earthenware fragments some seem to have had more care bestowed upon their manufacture than others. These are of a finer substance coated with a glossy pigment. The material of these bowls is not unlike that of the cinerary pots from Aylesford, though the shapes found at Hunsbury are wholly absent at Aylesford ; only at Glastonbury do we find anything approaching in quantity and nature or decoration the collection of pottery from Hunsbury ; it seems to be of a
- Vol. rxx. of the Anhaologual J oumal, p. 467. » Vol. xxvi. of the Anttquarf, p. 70.
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