ROMANO-BRITISH SUFFOLK APPENDIX Note on a Hoard of Bronze and Iron Objects found at Santon Downham A discovery at Santon Downham hitherto unpublished throws some light on the chronology of Early British antiquities, and by kind permission of Baron A. von Hiigel is here included under Roman Remains, as the series must be dated by the latest specimen in it. It is a hoard of scrap bronze together with a few iron tools, all found in a large bronze cauldron by a labourer, who brought the whole to the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology in 1897, and was himself responsible for the damage to the containing vessel. There can be no question that the miscellaneous collection now placed on exhibition was made by a worker in metals for recasting ; and as there are no objects obviously of another age, we may assume that the cauldron and its contents were practically con- temporary. Some of the specimens had been worn out and subsequently repaired before being scrapped ; others had been accidentally broken and were either unworthy or incapable of repair ; but we cannot credit the itinerant tinker with a taste for antiquities, and must assign the deposit of the hoard to the early years of Roman rule in Britain. It would be unwise to call this a period of transition from the late Celtic to the Roman style, as there are indications that British art sur- vived the Roman occupation and started on a new lease of life in the Anglo-Saxon period. In south-east England, however, the native craftsmen could not hold out against Roman influence ; and the Santon Downham hoard illustrates the Romanization of Britain at the expense of native traditions and craftsmanship. Attention may first be directed to the large vessel, made up of thin bronze plates, that would generally be described as a cauldron, but cannot have been used for cooking, and may perhaps be added to the list of water-clocks found in Britain. It closely resembles one from Baschurch, Shrop- shire,' now in the British Museum, that has a small round hole in the base ; and comparison with other vessels so perforated suggests that they were used by the ancient Britons to measure time, as was done till quite recently in India and Ceylon. The vessel is comparatively light, and is placed on the surface of water, which gradually percolates through the bottom and causes the vessel to sink in a specified time. It is then raised and emptied by an attendant, who announces the hour or other division of the day and replaces it on the surface, to repeat the process. The present example has, however, no such perforation at the present time, as the centre of the base has been cut out and a large circular patch of bronze added, just like a large example from Walthamstow in the national collection.' The extreme thinness of the bronze can only have been attained by continual ham- mering and firing, and suggests a delicate and important function for the vessel, which has a rim and two ring-handles of iron, and consists of an upright collar and swelling body with rounded base, the greatest diameter being 1 8^ in., the height 12^ in., and width of mouth 1 7 in.' At the junction of the collar with the body is a band of what might be taken for rivets, but the small bosses were produced by punching both thicknesses together from the inside at short intervals. In this worn-out water-clock (if such it was) had been packed a curious collection of oddments that may be roughly classified as of British and Roman work. The former are specially interesting because of rarer occurrence, as well as of greater artistic value, and are for the most part well pre- served. The best specimens are two open-work bronze plates, each with a pair of loops at the back for attachment to leather straps. They belong to a well-known type, and doubtless served to decorate chariot horses. The surface of both is adorned with sunk enamel (champlevd) that is now somewhat discoloured, but was originally of a uniform red,* in graceful scrolls that are peculiar to late Celtic art. In one can be seen delicate engraved scrollwork on the bronze ground between the enamel patches, but the surface of the other is somewhat corroded. The edges are lobed, but both are roughly 3 in. square, and formed of stout metal. There is another example of late Celtic scrollwork on a thick bronze disk with tang, and there is a bronze joint for two straps with a sunk rosette. Part of a horse's bridle-bit belongs to a recognized British type well represented in the Polden Hill series at the British Museum ; and there are several moulded terminals of bronze, some of which have had iron pins attached in the same way as the so-called linch-pins from Stanwick, Yorkshire. ' Pnc. Soc. Jntiq. xxi, 324, fig. 5, where details of British and foreign examples are given. ' Ibid. 329, where others similarly patched are cited. ' Corresponding measurements of the Baschurch specimen are lyf in., 12 in., andiyfin.
- Some idea of the colour and design may be derived from the Guide to the Early Iron Age (Brit. Mus.),
fig. 3 on plate opposite p. 90 ; fig. i has an outline more liice those described above. I 321 41
