In the month of March 1806 a herd boy, passing along the side of the Shaw Hill, near the House of New Cairnmuir, in the parish of Kirkurd, Peeblesshire, saw something glitter in the ground, and on scraping the place with his foot he unearthed a hoard of gold objects, consisting of two twisted arm-rings, each weighing 8 oz. 12 dwt., a broken ring of the same form weighing 8 oz. 10 dwt., forty small studs, each weighing about half a sovereign, and a hollow spherical ornament weighing 4 oz. 5 dwt.—the bullion value of the whole being about £110. One of the twisted arm-rings passed into the possession of Sir George Montgomery of Macbiehill; the spherical ornament and two of the small studs were obtained by Mr. John Lawson of Cairnmuir and placed in the National Museum; the rest of the hoard is believed to have been melted. The three arm-rings are spirally twisted rods of gold, with flat circular ends bent round to encircle the arm. The studs or pellets are nearly spherical, about the size of a large pea, and marked on the surface with a cruciform ornament in relief. The spherical ornament (Fig. 114) has some resemblance to the pommel of a sword, although its form gives no obvious indication of its purpose. It is 2½ inches in length by 2 inches in width, and about 1¼ inch in thickness. It has been cast hollow, with an opening through the centre of the rounded part, and must have been made by a very skilful workman. One side of it is plain, the other ornamented in _repoussé_ work of great beauty. The style of the ornament is simple, elegant, and highly effective. The surface to be decorated is broken up into irregular spaces by a system of the peculiar curves, which are so characteristic of the style of art of the bronzes which have been already described. Some of these spaces are further ornamented by a peculiar pitting of the surface seen in some of the decorated stone balls (Fig. 146); others are raised in solid curves of the same peculiar form, while the interspaces follow the form of the object itself. Studs and prominences, with spirals in relief, are introduced to give emphasis to the general design, which commends itself at once to the eye of taste as one of the most fitly beautiful and unaffected forms of surface-decoration which could be applied to such a purpose. [Illustration: Fig. 114.—Gold Ornament found on the Shaw Hill, near Cairnmuir, Kirkurd. Front and back views (actual size).]