Grave-mounds and Their Contents: A Manual of Archæology, as Exemplified in the Burials of the Celtic, the Romano-British, and the Anglo-Saxon PeriodsJewitt, Llewellynn Frederick William
History
Grave-mounds and Their Contents: A Manual of Archæology, as Exemplified in the Burials of the Celtic, the Romano-British, and the Anglo-Saxon Periods
Jewitt, Llewellynn Frederick William
Great Britain -- Antiquities; Megalithic monuments -- Great Britain; Mounds -- Great Britain
Fragments of another helmet were the following year found in another
barrow in the same neighbourhood, at Newhaven, along with other objects
of interest. The barrow had, however, at some previous time been
grievously mutilated. Of this barrow Mr. Bateman says: “We opened a
mutilated mound of earth in a field near Newhaven House, called the
Low, two-thirds of which had been removed, and the remainder more
or less disturbed, so that nothing was found in its original state,
which is much to be regretted, as the contents appear to be late in
date, and different in character from anything we have before found in
tumuli. The mound itself, being constructed of tempered earth, bore
some analogy to the grave-hill of the Saxon Thegn, opened at Benty
Grange about a year before, and, like it, was without human remains, if
we except a few fragments of calcined bone, which are too minute to be
certainly assigned either to a human or animal subject. The articles
found comprise many small pieces of thin iron straps or bands, more or
less overlaid with bronze, which are by no means unlike the framework
of the helmet found at Benty Grange. There is also a boss of thin
bronze, three inches diameter, pierced with three holes for attachment
to the dress, (?) and divided by raised concentric circles, between
which the metal is ornamented with a dotted chevron pattern, in the
angles of which are small roses punched by a die. Another object in
bronze is a small round vessel or box of thick cast metal, surrounded
by six vertical ribs, and having two perforated ears, serving probably
better to secure the lid and suspend the box. Although it measures less
than an inch in height, and less than two in diameter, it weighs full
3½ ounces. A similar box, with the lid, on which is a cross formed of
annulets, found with Roman remains at Lincoln, is engraved at page
30 of the Lincoln Book of the Archæological Institute, where it is
called a pyx. Two others, discovered at Lewes, are engraved in the
‘Archæologia,’ vol. xxxi., page 437, one of which has the lid bearing
a cross precisely similar to the Lincoln example, whence it is certain
that they must be assigned to a Christian period, probably not long
previous to the extinction of the Saxon monarchy. The last object there
is occasion to describe is an iron ferrule or hoop, an inch and a half
in diameter, one edge of which is turned inwards, so as to prevent
its slipping up the shaft on which it has been fixed. We also found
some shapeless pieces of melted glass, which, from their variegated
appearance, might be the product of fused beads; and observed many
pieces of charred wood throughout the mound, which may possibly not
have been of a sepulchral character.”
Another helmet, or defensive cap, was found some years ago at
Leckhampton Hill, in Gloucestershire, the ribs of which bear a striking
analogy to the one here described.
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