Page:VCH Suffolk 1.djvu/425

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ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS and acquired by Sir John Evans." The most famous examples of this type were found in the so-called tomb of Childeric, king of the Franks (d. 481), near Tournai ; but several are known from localities extending from the Caucasus to France. Many of these have been published with the Suffolk specimen by Baron de Baye,°*who connects them with the migrating Goihs of the 5th and 6th centuries, but has no explana- tion of the pattern, which seems in some cases to represent a bee, but in most is strangely conven- tionalized. The type may have been derived from the Greek colonies, on the north coast of the Black Sea, and various forms of garnet settings show that it had a wide popularity amone the barbarians. ^ „ 'T' r r ./ o . TT *^'°' '7' — Bronze Brooch tw Such brooches are specially numerous m Hungary, Form of Bee, Suffolk (J) and the bee is sometimes found applied to other forms of jewellery, such as a circular filigree brooch supposed to have been found in Kent, but clearly of continental workmanship.'* Other Suffolk relics of which the precise locality is not recorded may be mentioned briefly. In 1878 Mr, Henry Prigg (later Trigg) exhibited to the British Archaeological Association a square-headed brooch 6 in. long with silver plates at the angles of the head and on the terminal of the foot, but the ' cable pattern ' and absence of ' grotesque masks ' are evidence of a comparatively early, and not late, date as he supposed. The exhibition included a richly gilt fragment of late Saxon work, ' either a girdle-clasp or book-clasp, flowers of a simple form being prominent in the design ' ; and part of a girdle-hanger more ornate than usual. A ring-brooch with cruciform ring-and-dot pattern is also illustrated.'* Finger-rings figure conspicuously in the list of Anglo-Saxon remains from Suffolk, and the most interesting is doubtless one of silver now in the Moyses Hall Museum at Bury St. Edmunds. It is of plain silver, somewhat flat and broad like a modern wedding-ring, and is deeply engraved inside and out with a legend purporting to connect it with King ^thelstan, but the inscription does not inspire confidence. Another specimen of silver,'"^ formerly in the collection of Sir John Evans, is engraved round the outside, sigerie het mea gewircan, or, in modern English, 'Sigerie ordered me to be made.' The formula is familiar from its occurrence on the Alfred jewel," and as there is no objection to connecting the latter with the great English king, this ring may be referred to the same period (850-950). Several finger-rings, apparently of late Saxon origin, were collected by Mr. Joseph Warren from Ixworth and published from time to time, but not fully illustrated. One of silver, found in a field there in 1852, is evidently '* Proc. Sec. Anti<i. xi, 99. ^ Bulletin et Mimoires de la Societe nationale des Antiquaires de France, Ser. 6, vol. iv (1893), 137 (with ■coloured plate). " F.C.H. Kent, , 380, pi. i, fig. 11 (Canterbury Museum). " Joum. Brit. Arch. Assoc, xxxiv, 132 ; brooch compared to one from grave 158, at Little Wilbraham, Cambs. figured in Neville, Saxon Obsequies, pi. 10. '« Bury and W. Suff. Proc. i, 223, fig. 2 on plate. ^ Bury and IV. Suff. Proc. i, 223, figs. 7, 8. " f^.C.H. Som. i, 378, figs. A, B, c, D, on coloured plate. ^ Jeurn. Brit. Arch. Assoc, xi, 80, pi. 6, fig. 2 ; gold ring, fig. 3 ; cf. viii, 159.