Page:VCH Suffolk 1.djvu/416

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A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK accompanied by a bow 5 ft. in length. Examples are fairly numerous in Kentish graves, but there are generally indications that the graves containing them were of children, and the weapon may have been regarded as a mere toy, though it was an important arm in some continental areas. Small iron knives appear to have been carried by old and young of both sexes for use at meals, and appear regularly in the graves, though their wooden handles and leather sheaths are seldom preserved. The two buckets found are of normal appearance, though rather smaller than usual, being only 4 in. high ; and girdle-hangers or chatelaines, tweezers, and hairpins need only be mentioned as ordinary items of grave furniture. Beads were of amber, glass, pebble, and jet, those described as terra-cotta being in all probability opaque glass of various colours ; but special mention should be made of what are called triplet beads, such as have been found also at Marston St. Lawrence, Northants ; Bassett Down, Wiltshire ; and Driffield, E.R. Yorks. Perforated Roman coins for use as pendants were found here, as in several Anglo-Saxon cemeteries ; though in themselves useless for dating the cemeteries, they are useful as showing that imperial coins had become scarce and were looked upon as curiosities. They are generally all of the Constantine period," and show signs of wear. Two silver disks were found, one with a boss in the centre and a stamped design round the edge (as at N. Luffenham, Rutland ; Sleaford, Lines. ; and again at Warren Hill and Ipswich), and the other resembling a bracteate ; these were normally of gold. Both bracteate and punched silver disk appeared in a woman's grave at Longbridge, War- wick." Pairs of bronze clasps are frequently found in graves of the Anglian district, and were probably for bracelets, as they have been noticed, some- times with remains of leather, on the wrists of skeletons at Sleaford, Lines. ; Barrington, Cambridgeshire ; Marston St. Lawrence, Northants ; and again in Suffolk at Warren Hill. Buckles of iron and bronze occurred, and two retained traces of the cloth that they originally fastened, or on which they lay in the grave. Iron strike-a-lights for use with flint are by no means common, but one was found at West Stow, and others similar are known from Ipswich. It only remains to mention the brooches, which include broad annular specimens of a common type, some having lost their pins, small square- headed and trefoil- headed with spreading foot, a typical long brooch of the late 6th century, and two remarkable specimens that must be described in more detail. Though possibly made within a few years of each other, they represent two different stages in the evolution of the true cruciform brooch from the long brooch of Scandinavia. The illustration of the earlier (pi. v, fig. 2) shows that while the salient features of the long brooch were retained, the square head was furnished with a border of ' spectacle ' and other patterns, with circular perforations at intervals round the head-plate. In the other specimen, from West Stow,"^ the three knobs projecting from the edges of the head-plate are not only flattened out as before, but thrust outwards to form the arms and upper limb of the ' cruciform ' type. The extravagant length

    • Specimens of Valens (364.-78) and Gratian (367-83) are recorded from this site, both perforated ;

Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc, v, 360 (excavations of 184.9-50). " F.C.H. fVarw. , pp. 263-4, ^g^- 7. ' I. 0° coloured plate. "' Bury and W. Suff. Arch. Soc. Proc. i, pi. xli A.