Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 1.djvu/264

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.

PROCEEDINGS OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE

of the

British Archaeological Association.


June 25.


Mr. C. R. Smith stated that the Council of the Numismatic Society had authorized him to present to the Association a complete set of the Proceedings of the Society, 4 vols. 8vo. London, 1836—44.

Mr. Manby exhibited two Roman bronze swords, found near the Roman wall in Northumberland, and a Norman sword found in the Thames, opposite the new houses of parliament.

Mr. Wright read a note from Mr. John Virtue, of 58, Newman-street, accompanying an exhibition of two fragments of Roman red pottery, an ivory knife-handle, an earthen jar and a glass bottle of the middle ages, an abbey counter, and a piece of “black money,” stated to have been discovered, about two years since, with a quantity of the red pottery, and a considerable number of gold, silver, and copper coins, during the formation of the Dover railway, at the depth of about 17 feet from the surface of the ground, in the immediate vicinity of Joiner-street, London Bridge.

Mr. C. R. Smith exhibited a spur and fibula in bronze, the property of Mr. Joseph Warren, of Ixworth, Suffolk. The spur is of the kind termed “prick-spur,” but differing from the Norman (to which this term is usually applied) in form, size, and general character. It is ornamented and studded with small stones, or rather coloured pastes. The ends to which the leathern straps were fastened are fashioned into the shape of animals’ heads. It was found at Pakenham, a village adjoining Ixworth. The fibula is cruciform, and four inches in length, the upper and lower parts terminating in grotesque heads. It was found at Ixworth. These two objects are considered to be either Saxon or Danish. The spur is an extremely rare specimen; the fibula is of a kind common to the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Northampton, but in the southern and western counties is not frequently met with.

Mr. Smith then read the following communications from Mr. Thomas Bateman, jun., of Bakewell, Derbyshire:—

“In making a plantation north of Kenslowe wood, near Middleton, on the 19th of May, 1828, the labourers discovered in a natural fissure in the rock some human teeth and bones, mixed with bones of rats and other animals, amongst others a boar’s tusk, all of which are now in my possession. Thinking that by making a better search something else might be discovered, in April, 1844, I cleared all the soil out of the fissure, and found amongst it some more human