(a) Bronze was a metal so much valued that implements and weapons formed of it were often hidden underground as a security against robbery.
(b) When bronze implements, etc., were worn out, or broken, or spoiled in the casting, the metal was preserved and melted down for fresh castings.
(c) There were men whose special trade or craft it was to cast objects in bronze.
(a) Bronze objects after being cast were kept for some time before being finished off.
(e) Tin is never found separately from copper in bronze hoards, although lumps of practically pure copper are found; from which it may be concluded that tin was perhaps used in a powdered form, and therefore is not easily detected.
The bronze age antiquities of Buckinghamshire comprise a group of implements which must unquestionably be regarded as one of these hoards. At Lodge Hill, Waddesdon, five socketed celts, varying in length from 2½ inches to 2¾ inches, and of plain character, were found together in the year 1855. They were lithographed on a plate by Mr. Edward Stone. Probably this was the hoard of a dealer in bronze celts, and from the socketed form of the celts it is evident that the deposit belongs to the middle or latter part of the bronze age.
Bronze Sword Found at Hawridge.
It is now upwards of half a century since Mr. (now Sir John) Evans exhibited at a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries of London a bronze sword found in 1851 in a field in the parish of Hawridge. It is two-edged, pointed, and measures 21 inches in length. The lower part exhibits perforations through which the studs or rivets pass fastening it to its handle. Mr. Evans remarked that "the present specimen differs in no material point from others already known, though the substitution of slots or longitudinal openings for the series of circular rivet-holes is not of frequent occurrence."[1]
Some important discoveries of objects belonging to the bronze age were made near Wycombe Marsh in December 1888. Attention was first drawn to the matter by an accident. As a man was guiding his plough one of the horse's feet stepped into a hole, and on examination it was found that this hole was the interior of a large cinerary urn buried in the earth. The site of this discovery was known as Barrow Croft, and it is probable that the urn had once been covered by a sepulchral mound or barrow which had become levelled in the course of many years of cultivation of the soil.
Subsequent investigations of the deposit were superintended by Mr. John Parker, F.S.A., who contributed to the Society of Antiquaries
- ↑ Proceedings Society of Antiquaries, 1st series, vol. ii. p. 215.
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