bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
A ‘Romano-Celtic’ Temple near Harlow, Essex; and a note on the type
Authors: Wheeler R. E. M.
Published: January 2012

About two hundred and fifty yards west of Harlow railway-station, in the Essex border-parish of Latton (Ordnance Survey 6-in. map, XLI, NW.), a small gravel-capped oval hill known as Stanegrove or Standing Groves rises to a height of some 20 ft. above the marshy banks of the river Stort. In 1764 and again in 1819 ‘very strong walls’ were observed here; and other foundations ‘evidently Roman’, tesserae, many other Roman relics, and a stone coffin are recorded to have been discovered in the fields extending for a mile to the north-east, more particularly during excavations for gravel within 250 yards of the mound itself. Coffins thought to be of Roman date were found also near the station when the railway was built in 1841 and were re-buried in the station-yard. Amongst the finds from the area are specially noted ‘a great number of Roman coins chiefly of Emperors from the first Claudius to Valentinian’, including ‘several silver pieces of Sabina, Faustina the Elder, and Constantinus Junior’, and a few British, of which the following are specified: (1) one with a helmeted head, with CUNOBELINA; reverse, a hog and TASCHOVANIT (sic); (2) another ‘with a head on one side; on the other a man striking upon an anvil; (3) ‘one with a star, between the rays of which are the letters VERLAMIO; reverse, an ox’. The general character of the evidence closely resembles that obtained from similar riverside gravels in many parts of south-eastern Britain, and indicates a fairly extensive and continuous occupation, perhaps not of a very high order, from later prehistoric times to the last quarter of the fourth century.
The Basilica of Constantia, Cyprus
Authors: Jeffery G. E.
Published: January 2012

In the course of the winter of 1924–25 the remains of one of the largest fourth-century Christian churches, outside of Rome, were discovered on the site of the Byzantine city of Constantia in Cyprus by the Curator of Ancient Monuments. The church belongs to the Basilican type with five aisles and four rows of columns, a type which preceded the regular Byzantine or domical plan with its thick walls and abutments. Its dimensions, exclusive of remains of attached buildings, porches, etc., are 184 ft. from east to west and 148 ft. from north to south. The central nave is 38 ft. wide and the double aisles on either side cover a width of 52 ft. in each case, and the total area under its wooden roofs was consequently over 27,000 square feet. In the centre of the eastern wall is a semicircular apse of the same width as the central nave.
A Neolithic Site at Abingdon, Berks. (Second Report)
Authors: Leeds E. Thurlow
Published: January 2012

At the close of the description of the site itself in the first report i t was stated that the rise in the level of the trench east of the pit containing Hearth 4 suggested the presence of a causeway beyond. It is now more than doubtful whether the evidence is capable of such interpretation. Just beyond the top of the slope where all signs of the usual cultural layer had disappeared, a fine specimen of a comb and some sherds were found, but after that nothing but occasional flakes of flint and a very few sparse sherds.
Report on recent Excavations in London
Authors: Birley E. B.
Published: January 2012

Excavations on this site, which has a frontage of 130 feet on the west side of Princes Street, beginning 110 feet north of Mansion House Street, were watched from January 1928 by Mr. Quintin Waddington of the Guildhall Museum, and from September 1928 until the close of excavation in January 1929, by the present writer also. Digging usually proceeded in narrow shafts, the sides of which were boarded up as the work went on, whilst the use of day and night shifts made progress rapid, so that it was only possible to obtain occasional and incomplete views of stratified matter. However, it proved possible to make periodical examinations of the pottery from a number of separate shafts; and a limited amount of trial excavation during the men's dinner-hour was also carried out.
Report on the Excavations at Stonehenge during the Season of 1924
Authors: Hawley W.
Published: January 2012

On behalf of Mr. Newall and myself I am making the 6th Report on the work carried out at Stonehenge which covers the season of 1924. The excavations were continued in a similar way to those of the previous year by making a succession of trenches between the rampart and the standing stones, beginning this time near no. 12 Aubrey hole and continuing towards the west. In the previous year a quadrant from north-east to south-east was searched, and it was determined to complete another quadrant from the south-east to the south-west.
Some additions to the plan of the Benedictine Priory Church of St. Mary, Blyth, Notts.
Authors: Fairweather F. H.
Published: January 2012

Shortly after the Conquest the Honour of Blyth, comprising a large part of South Yorkshire and parts of Derby, Notts., and Lincoln, as well as manors in more distant counties, was granted to Roger de Busli, a Norman named from his manor of Builli-en-Bray near Neufchâtel, in the pasture country of north-east Normandy, a kinsman of the great house of Belesme. By the time of the Domesday Survey de Busli had moved the head of the Honour to Tickhill, where he had selected the site of his great castle, and in 1087–8 he decided to found a monastery at Blyth, not impossibly upon ground cleared by this transfer. His foundation charter endows the monks with the church of Blyth, &c., making it over to ‘the monks serving God in that place’. The priory was made subordinate to the abbey of Holy Trinity (elsewhere described as St. Katherine) at Rouen, on a pension of 405. The church is said to have been completed shortly after the death of the founder, who is known to have been dead in 1098, and just before that of his eldest son, who died in 1102. Another son, Arnaldus, who carried on the line, appears as a witness to the foundation charter, and a daughter, Beatrix, married Robert earl of Eu. The foundation had twenty-nine known priors, who came mainly from the abbeys and priories of Notts, and Yorkshire, and was dissolved in February 1535–6, when the eastern or monastic portion of the church was condemned to destruction, the area being included in the grant of the Blyth Hall estate, and the western or remainder became entirely parochial.
Excavations in Macedonia
Authors: Casson Stanley
Published: January 2012

The mound of Kilindir (fig. 1) lies about one kilometre south-west of the station of that name on the railway that runs from Salonika to Constantinople via Seres, Dedeagatch and Adrianople. A small stream called Gyol Ayak issues from the south side of Lake Doiran exactly at the modern village at Doiran station. This stream, after passing through nine kilometres of broken and ravined country, issues into more open ground just by the modern Chiflik which represents the pre-war site of the village of Kilindir.
Anniversary Address
Authors: Peers Charles
Published: January 2012

It is my pleasant duty to begin by returning to you my most sincere thanks for the honour you have once more done me. In electing me your President for the fifth time, and an officer of the Society for the twenty-sixth time, you have completed for me my record, for this is the last time that I shall ever ask for your votes in this room. If I am in my place next year I shall hope then to express to you how deeply I feel this final proof of your confidence; but the very fact that I am now entering on my last year of office turns my thoughts towards the end of my long service, and to the debt I owe to you all for your constant support and encouragement.
The Early Saxon Penetration of the Upper Thames Area
Authors: Leeds E. T.
Published: January 2012

In 1912, when I undertook a survey of the distribution of the Anglo-Saxon saucer-brooches, I endeavoured to bring that survey into line with the historical records of the period, and thus was compelled to use the campaign of A.D. 571 as the pivot round which the results of my examination of the material must be made to revolve. Certain deductions in regard to distribution of types and decorative motives ensued, but the main result attained was the demonstration of a wider diffusion of the saucer-brooch and the ‘applied’ or ‘composite’ form than had been previously appreciated, and, further, the Saxon character of the material from a large group of cemeteries eastwards of the Thames-Ouse watershed.
Report on an Early Bronze Age Site in the South-Eastern Fens
Authors: Clark Grahame , Godwin H. , Godwin M. E. , Macfadyen W. A.
Published: January 2012

Plantation Farm, Shippea Hill, is situated in the south-east corner of the Fenland, some seven miles ENE. of Ely. The vast Fenland plain, formed essentially by the filling-up of a corrugated basin of Jurassic and boulder clays with post-glacial peats, silts, and clays, provides a field for the study of post-glacial changes of environment in relation to man without equal in Britain. As reported in a recent number of the Antiquaries Journal, a Research Committee has been formed at Cambridge under the presidency of Dr. Seward, F.R.S., to organize research in this work and to secure adequate co-operation of specialists in the different sciences. Notwithstanding great advances in the technical equipment of research, remarkably little has been added to our knowledge in this field since the publication of Skertchley's Geology of the Fenland in 1877. We have had, therefore, to begin at the beginning, and this report, which establishes the stratigraphical context of the Early Bronze Age in the deposits of the south-eastern fens, represents one of the first-fruits of our activities. Sir Charles Hiam very kindly allowed us to work on his land, and the Trustees of the Percy Sladen Memorial Fund generously made the excavations and borings possible. We may also take the opportunity here of thanking Mr. Charles Leaf for his part in the initial discovery of the site.
An Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Nassington, Northants.
Authors: Leeds E. T. , Atkinson R. J. C.
Published: January 2012

In the past, although many discoveries of early Anglo-Saxon cemeteries have been made in Northamptonshire, no detailed record exists of any series of burials larger than the thirty-seven graves explored by Sir Henry Dryden at Marston St. Lawrence at the southwestern end of the county. The following report of the cemetery at Nassington therefore constitutes a most important addition to our knowledge of the archaeology of the period.
The Incised Ornament on the Celtic Mirror from Colchester, Essex
Authors: Fox Cyril , Hull M. R.
Published: January 2012

The Colchester Celtic mirror has been known to students of the period since a photograph of it was published by Henry Laver in the Proceedings of our Society (x·x, 1905, p. 213) as one object in an important grave-group. Laver noted that the back of that portion of the mirror-plate which is preserved is ‘ornamented with a spiral pattern’, but this pattern is not to be seen in the reproduction. Another reference in the literature is that by R. A. Smith, Archaeologia, lxi, 338, who mentions ‘traces of engraved scrollwork’ and an ‘imbricated filling, not of the usual basket-pattern’. Mr. E. T. Leeds produced another group photograph of the find; Celtic Ornament, fig. 10 and p. 30.

The writers of this article collaborated for the purpose of studying the ornament, and of reconstructing the complete design, if that should prove possible. The incised work was found to be very difficult to follow owing to a pustule-like corrosion all over the mirror fragment. Thus, as one of us remarked after the first attempt, ‘it is only here and there, either in a strong cross-light, or with the lens, that one can see and copy it’.

Thereafter both of us worked on the mirror fragment, and gradually the pattern emerged; it is reproduced in fig. 1. This drawing is necessarily an imitative representation of the original; it records not only actual marks on the bronze, but also direct inductions, such as the continuation of a partly preserved curve or circle, a line drawn on one side to match a line preserved on the other, and the development of the ‘matting’ or hatching from intermittent appearances. We have thought it well to indicate corrosion, but the dense obscurity of the original due to this cause cannot be reproduced.

Portions of the rim of the mirror survive. This is as usual a separate strip of metal bent in a C-shape round the edge of the plate. The handle of the mirror is an attractive variant of a familiar design which can be better appreciated in the drawing than in the photographs previously published.
The Wax Images found in Exeter Cathedral
Authors: Radford U. M.
Published: January 2012

In September 1943, in the course of repair work made necessary by the air raid of May 1942, certain fragments of wax images were found by one of the cathedral masons on the top of the stone screen which surrounds the quire. They were hidden behind the cresting in a wide open joint of the masonry, loosely packed with broken pieces of glass, slaked lime, oyster-shells, and splinters of stone, and over the tomb of Bishop Edmund Lacey (1420–55) (pl. XIX, a). All the fragments of wax are unpainted and all have been cast in a mould; they vary in colour from a dirty pale yellow to a deep terra-cotta; they are very brittle and dry to the touch, without the soft, silky feel of a wax doll.
A Celtic Bird-brooch from Red Hill, near Long Eaton, Notts.
Authors: Hawkes C. F. C. , Jacobsthal Paul
Published: January 2012

The bronze brooch illustrated from photographs on pl. xi (and here also from drawings by Mr. F. Cottrill), was found a number of years ago by Mr. T. W. Armitage of Trent Lock, Long Eaton, on the high ground known as Red Hill, above the steep right bank of the river Soar just south of its confluence with the Trent in southern Nottinghamshire, between the villages of Thrumpton and Ratcliffe-upon-Soar and on the west side of the main L.M.S. railway line from Leicester to Nottingham, Long Eaton, and Derby. The site is habitually arable land, and Mr. Armitage has collected a number of antiquities from its surface, including besides this brooch several Roman coins and Romano-British bronze brooches along with some amount of mainly Romano-British pottery, to which, in the winter of 1943, he drew the attention of the Society. In subsequent correspondence he readily gave permission for the publication here of this unusual brooch, which he had himself recognized as a Celtic product of the pre-Roman Iron Age; and in lending it to the present writers for the purpose, he allowed it also to be cleaned and examined at Oxford, under Mr. Jacobsthal's direction, by Mr. V. R. Rickard in the laboratory of the Ashmolean Museum. The photographs were taken in the studio of the same museum.
Denmark and Early England
Authors: Leeds E. Thurlow
Published: January 2012

One of the most impressive features of Scandinavian archaeology in the fifth and sixth centuries of our era is the wealth of gold which the three countries enjoyed during that period, more particularly Denmark and southern Sweden. About its source there can be little doubt, for it can hardly be regarded as other than deriving from direct subsidies bestowed by successive Roman emperors as deterrents to the restless tribes lying immediately beyond the frontier of the empire. Eventually it reached Scandinavia in the hands of tribes whose movement from south Russia constituted one of the streams which diffused the Gothic culture over a large part of Europe during the migration period.
The Archbishop's Three Seats in Canterbury Cathedral
Authors: Phillips C. S.
Published: January 2012

The question ‘Where did the Archbishop of Canterbury sit in pre-Reformation times when officially present at divine service in his cathedral?’ is one which has had no very clear answer hitherto. There can be no dispute that his ‘throne’ par excellence—the sign and symbol of his episcopal and primatial dignity—was the so-called ‘St. Augustine's chair’ still in use at archiepiscopal enthronements—really a marble chair of early-thirteenth-century date (hereafter to be called the Marble Chair); or that a similar throne in the same position, viz. the old ‘basilican’ position of the bishop's throne behind the high altar, existed in the earlier choirs of Lanfranc and Conrad. But under the conditions which prevailed when the choir was rebuilt after the fire of 1174 this throne, however impressive symbolically, must have had such drawbacks from other points of view as to make it hard to believe that the occasions when the archbishop actually occupied it were more than very rare.
A Gold Ring with Runes from Central Europe
Authors: Leeds E. T.
Published: January 2012

The collection of continental European and Anglo-Saxon jewellery dating from the second half of the first millennium of our era in the Ashmolean Museum, though of no great size, has for many years been noted for its quality, including, as it does, the fine series of ornaments and rings collected by Sir John Evans and presented in 1908 by Sir Arthur Evans, together with such outstanding pieces as the Alfred Jewel and the Minster Lovel jewel. To these have more recently been added important gold rings, a further gift from Sir Arthur Evans, and the magnificent brooch from Sarre, Kent, purchased in 1934.

In the early half of this year an unexpended balance of a grant from the bequest of Mr. George Flood France, allotted by the Visitors of the Museum for the purchase of objects of art, allowed the Department of Antiquities to contemplate the acquisition of yet another important jewel, and by the help of a supplementary grant which the Trustees of the National Art-Collections Fund generously promised to contribute if needed, there has now been added to the collection a gold ring of the finest quality, its interest enhanced by the presence of a runic inscription engraved on the inside of the hoop (pl. L).
Hand-Axes later than the Main Coombe-Rock of the Lower Thames Valley
Authors: Burchell J. P. T.
Published: January 2012

Archaeologists in France have for many years recognized hand-axes of St. Acheul facies in association with flake-implements of Levallois type, which are contemporary with the mid-Pleistocene deposits of the Somme valley. Their place in the culture-sequence is after the cold period that produced the main Coombe-rock of South-East England, and the Little Eastern or Upper Chalky Boulder-clay of East Anglia. The Coombe-rock referred to overwhelmed the Levallois II factory-site at Baker's Hole, Northfleet, Kent.

In England, however, it has taken much longer to trace these mid-Pleistocene hand-axes in contemporary beds. The first was found by the late F. G. Spurrell on the classic ‘floor’ at the base of the Crayford Brickearth, though it was not until quite recently that the correct age of the Crayford series was determined. This specimen is now in the British Museum (Natural History), but is not figured in the present note.
A Brass once in Biggleswade Church
Authors: Griffin Ralph
Published: January 2012

The fine large church of St. Andrew, Biggleswade, in Bedfordshire, is described in the V.C.H. of that county (i, 213). In the course of last century it suffered a devastating restoration, one of the results of which was the almost total destruction of an interesting monumental brass which was lying in a large Purbeck slab in the midst of the chancel, being the memorial of a distinguished cleric who had the prebend of Biggleswade in Lincoln Cathedral. This brass had attracted the attention of Gough, who devotes a page of his second volume to illustrating it. This page is reproduced without its margin in pl. XLVIII. The margin only shows the reference at top to pl. CII, and to the page 273 of the volume, and below notes that the drawing was done by Schnebbelie and the engraving by Longmate. The slab as shown is very large, being 11½ ft by 5½ ft. Haines in part ii of his Manual (1861) describes the brass, stating that though the effigy and canopy with SS. John Baptist, Anna, Elizabeth, and Mary of Egypt were lost, yet figures of death, angels, etc., inscription in sixteen Latin verses and mutilated marginal inscription in ten Latin verses remained, and that the slab had been powdered with crescents and escallops, all lost but two. Sir A. W. Franks, in Proceedings, vi, 311, notes that the effigy was kneeling.
Three Carved Stones in the Collection of the Society
Authors: Clapham A. W.
Published: January 2012

The three carved stones which are the subject of these notes have been in the possession of the Society for an indeterminate length of time. The late Sir William Hope appears to have known nothing of their provenance, which carries back the Society's possession of them beyond the year 1885 when he became Assistant Secretary. They were probably exhibited or were intended to be exhibited to the Society and never subsequently removed, though no record of such exhibition is to be found in our Minutes. This unfortunate omission deprives us of an exact knowledge of the place from which the stones came, but a scientific examination of the material of which they are made identifies it as Northamptonshire oolite or some very closely allied stone. This indicates the Peterborough district as the approximate area from which they came.
Excavations at Ur, 1930–1
Authors: Woolley C. Leonard
Published: January 2012

The Joint Expedition of the British Museum and of the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania started its ninth season at Ur on 1st November 1930, and continued in the field until 20th March 1931. The season was a long one and a larger number of workmen than usual was employed, the average for the first three and a half months being 280 and for the remainder of the time 200; the amount of actual excavation done was in consequence greater than in any previous year.
Prehistoric Remains from Selsey Bill
Authors: White G. M. , Hawkes Christopher
Published: January 2012

The existence on Selsey Bill in West Sussex of sites belonging to the Early Iron Age was recognized in 1909, but recent finds of pottery at one of these, the gravel pit in Golf Links Lane, has made a closer study of the question necessary.
Three Late Bronze Age Barrows on the Cloven Way
Authors: Preston J. P. , Hawkes Christopher
Published: January 2012

Mr. Preston discovered the Colbury barrow, the first of those here to be described, in April 1931; shortly afterwards, with the permission of the New Forest Deputy Surveyor, he excavated it, and found it to contain cinerary urns assignable to what is usually called the Deverel-Rimbury class of Late Bronze Age sepulchral pottery. Those which could be selected as still practically complete were presented by the Forestry Commissioners to the British Museum. Mr. Preston had previously, in 1928 and 1929, excavated two other barrows, at Landford and Plaitford not many miles away, which had yielded urns of the same class, and in the present paper all three have been brought together. The material for the description of each barrow and its contents is naturally the excavator's: I have collaborated with him in its interpretation, and in doing so have ventured on one or two more general considerations.
Palaeolithic Implements from Kirmington, Lincolnshire, and their relation to the 100-foot raised beach of Late Pleistocene Times
Authors: Burchell J. P. T.
Published: January 2012

Last year I described before the Society a series of flint implements of Upper Palaeolithic (Upper Mousterian-Aurignacian) facies discovered by me in Yorkshire at the base of, and passing up into, a deposit considered by Lamplugh to resemble a weathered Boulder clay and classed by him as of Late Glacial Age. The geological aspects of these archaeological finds I have dealt with fully in a paper read subsequently to the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia. Both papers, however, were complementary to one read by J.Reid Moir on archaeological discoveries of a similar nature made by him in north-west Norfolk in the Brown Boulder clay. With the objects of obtaining confirmation of Lamplugh's geological opinion and of bridging the gap between north-west Norfolk and Yorkshire, I decided to investigate the glacial sequence in north-east Lincolnshire, choosing Kirmington as a centre.
Anniversary Address
Authors: Clapham A. W.
Published: January 2012

Once more the Society's Anniversary Meeting takes place beneath that shadow which has impended for two and a half years, and, though its intensity may appear to wax or wane as fate may tip the balance one way or the other, it is evident that the decisive hour is not yet. These circumstances must inevitably place the activities of the Society under severe restraint, a restraint which must become more pressing as the intensity of our effort and the stringency of our material resources, for any but one purpose, become more and more pronounced. Excavation, except in cases dictated by military emergency, has practically ceased, research based upon our national collections and archives is almost equally impossible, and the shortage of paper will soon operate imperatively on the extent and material quality of our publications.
The ‘Dardanelles’ Gun at the Tower
Authors: ffoulkes Charles
Published: January 2012

Before considering the actual gun which forms the title of this paper, it may be of some interest to give some details of the manufacture and use of gigantic guns for oriental war operations, for these present certain problems of manufacture, transport, and practical use which deserve more than passing consideration. A great deal of this material has been collected by that indefatigable student of all matters connected with artillery, General Sir Henry Lefroy, who was responsible for the foundation of the Royal Artillery Institution in 1838, and, in addition to his military duties, was a keen scientist and particularly interested in meteorological survey work, which he carried out in the observatories of St. Helena, Toronto, Lake Athabasca, and elsewhere.
The ‘Antiquitates’of Hans Tirol
Authors: Dodgson Campbell
Published: January 2012

The library of Eton College contains an illuminated German MS. of about 1540–5, originally in three volumes, now bound as four, of which the contents are largely heraldic. At the beginning of each of the original volumes are the arms of Henry VIII, handsomely, but not correctly, painted on a large scale; the supporters and the shape of the crown are wrong. The principal volume, entitled ‘Antiquitates’, when shown in 1932 in an exhibition of medieval works of art at Eton, caught my attention and suggested a study of its contents, which will be published, in German, in the Münchener Jahrbuch, 1935.
An Enamelled Crosier-head in the Pitt-Rivers Museum at Farnham, Dorset
Authors: Kendrick T. D.
Published: January 2012

Dr. Tancred Borenius has already described and illustrated a number of the medieval enamels in the Pitt-Rivers Museum at Farnham, Dorset, and I have now an opportunity of adding to the published series a crosier-head in the same collection, permission to do so having been very kindly given to me by Captain Pitt-Rivers and Mr. Trelawney Dayrell-Reed, Curator of the Museum. The crosier-head was formerly in the collection of Mr. J. F. Hutton, of Manchester, and was purchased by General Pitt-Rivers in 1890; it was at that time an incongruous and ill-fitting assortment of pieces, consisting of modern metal-work of two kinds, the knop of a fifteenth-century silver-gilt chalice, a fourteenth-century copper-gilt hexagonal collar of the architectural type, and the thirteenth-century enamelled crook illustrated here (pl. lxx, 1 ). As the photograph shows, the crook has now been freed from these later additions, and it can henceforth take its place without encumbrances as the only example in this country of the very beautiful French enamelled crosier-heads that we may call the ‘flowering volute’ type.
Late Neolithic Grooved Ware near Cambridge
Authors: Frere D. H. S.
Published: January 2012

The site to be described was discovered by the writer in a newly cut ditch three miles south of Cambridge on the Hills Road (fig. I). It was revealed in section as a small pit, about 3 ft. across by 2 ft. deep, sunk into the chalk (fig. 2), and investigation showed that the major part of it had already been removed: when cleared the recess was found to extend in plan barely a foot from the face. The spot lies at about 60 ft. above O.D., and the ground rises very gently on three sides, but is level or slightly depressed towards the north-west. The sub-soil is the Lower Chalk, which at this point is overlain by about 8 in. of brown soil and the same depth of dark plough-soil.
Anniversary Address
Authors: Peers Charles
Published: January 2012

Our 225th Anniversary finds the Society making steady progress with the undertakings to which we have set our hands, and in no lack of material for future enterprise. Our financial position, through the care and foresight of our Treasurer, may be considered sound, though we have all too little to devote to the various researches on which we are engaged. Of our normal and permanent activities it is not necessary for me to speak: the session with its round of papers and exhibitions has brought many valuable contributions to our journals, and if we have no single objects this year quite in the same class as the Easby crossshaft and the Winchester bowl, we have nothing to complain of. Our capital enterprises, the excavations at Richborough and the joint excavations at Colchester and St. Albans, have fully maintained their standard of accomplishment, and the watching of recently exposed sites in London has preserved records of the earlier levels which now from year to year are being entirely obliterated by modern processes of building. I am particularly glad to see, in Mr. Dunning's work under the Esher Studentship and in the researches of Dr. Fox and Mr. Radford atKidwelly, the notable progress made in our knowledge of the dates and provenance of medieval pottery. The next few years should mark a substantial advance in what has hitherto been a neglected subject.
Excavations at Sérvia in Western Macedonia
Authors: Heurtley W. A.
Published: January 2012

The mound lies on the south bank of the Haliakmon at the point where the modern road from Macedonia to Thessaly crosses the river by an iron bridge built by the Turks in 1912 (figs. 1 and 2). Except for slight traces of occupation in Byzantine and Turkish times the site seems to have been derelict since the early Bronze Age, its strategic equivalent being at one time the fortress (of uncertain date) that crowns the hill immediately north of the bridge, and, at another, the Byzantine castle above Sérvia that commands the entrance to the Sarardáporo pass and the road to the south. East-west communications past the site cannot have been considerable at any time, since north-eastwards the river, after flowing past the mound, soon enters a rocky and impassable gorge, from which it emerges only at Verria some forty kilometres distant.
A Destroyed Cycle of Wall-Paintings in a Church in Wiltshire
Authors: Borenius Tancred
Published: January 2012

The fact that the examples of Medieval Painting surviving in England are but a fraction of the pictorial production of this country during the period in question, is, of course, a commonplace among all students of the subject; and whenever you follow up a special line of investigation in this connexion you inevitably get a fresh and vivid illustration of this fact.
The Second Belgic Invasion
Authors: Hawkes Christopher , Dunning G. C.
Published: January 2012

‘Was there’, asks Mrs. Cunnington in the January number of this Journal, ‘a Second Belgic Invasion (represented by bead-rim pottery)?’ The answer on her last page is that it ‘remains extremely doubtful’. Her article is in fact a vigorous challenge to belief in this invasion, as maintained by us in a paper published last year, entitled ‘The Belgae of Gaul and Britain’. To this paper she does not indeed allude by name, for her notice is confined to one or its six sections only. In bringing the issue here once more under discussion, we feel bound to restore this section to its context, if only to give it no more importance than its due, for there are sundry points that have thus lain outside the scope of Mrs. Cunnington's article which may nevertheless perhaps prove important in estimating the matter as a whole. We will follow her arguments in order.
The Date of the Plano-Convex Flint-Knife in England and Wales
Authors: Clark J. Grahame D.
Published: January 2012

The type here discussed is a common feature of most collections of surface flints from this country, but little serious study has been devoted to it ; and though it has frequently been found in datable associations, no one seems to have attached it to any particular culture. Collectors in East Anglia have long called specimens of the type ‘slugs ’, a term unfortunately employed in other areas, for instance Sussex, to describe flint fabricators. In view of this confusion the author suggests the use of the term ‘plano-convex-knife ’ which accurately describes the section of the implement. The type is characterized by pressure or scale flaking on the slightly convex upper face, the under surface retaining the flake surface, usually with the bulb and sometimes with the striking platform intact. As a general rule the flake from which the knife is made shows a distinct curve in its longitudinal axis. As a result of the fine pressure technique employed, the convex surface of the implement commonly gives a glossy or soapy feel to the touch. In the finer and more typical specimens the whole of this upper surface shows the characteristic secondary flaking, though in some cases the central area of the flake is allowed to retain its primary character. In plan the commonest form is elongated oval of varying width (nos. 1 and 2), which is in a few examples (e.g. one from Bishop's Burton, barr. CCLV) serrated round the entire edge save for the buttend. The point is normally obtuse, if not rounded, and in a few cases (no. 3) is trimmed to a scraping edge. Finally we have to note rather a distinct variety with a straight chisel-like extremity (no. 4) from which flakes have been removed in the main line of the implement. This particular specimen has lateral notches as though for hafting.
A pax at Abergavenny
Authors: Wheeler R. E. M.
Published: January 2012

Dr. Johnson thought that a pax was a pyx, and amended Shakespeare accordingly. Since the issue of the Dictionary, however, the pax has more than once been thesubject of communications by Fellows of our Society, and the ‘Ignorance, madame, sheer ignorance’ to which the Doctor might have pleaded would now be more difficult to excuse. Nevertheless, the salient features in the usage and history of the pax may perhaps be restated very briefly.
The Development of Fishing in Prehistoric Europe
Authors: Clark J. G. D.
Published: January 2012

Although fishing, together with most of its principal appliances, was found to be of almost universal occurrence by European explorers as they penetrated the remoter parts of the world, it seems to have appeared as a specialized activity comparatively late in the history of the hominids. Whereas even the anthropians had added the resources of hunting to the vegetarian diet of their simian forebears, it was left toHomo sapiensin his evolved form to explore the possibilities of fishing. Thus the fisherman is entitled to regard his pastime as deriving from an economic activity peculiar to Neoanthropic Man. It is true that a few fish-bones were found with Neanderthal remains at Devil's Tower, Gibraltar, which yielded ‘very few fish remains, mostly indeterminable’; but these may not have been introduced by man and, if they were, need not indicate more than the gathering of an occasional fish from the sea-shore, from which in the form of limpets and mussels the inmates of the rock-shelter derived a large proportion of their sustenance.
The Use of Arabic and Roman Numerals in English Archives
Authors: Jenkinson Hilary
Published: January 2012

This subject was not considered in any great detail in the work of Mr. Johnson and myself upon Court Hand because in the medieval period Arabic numerals do not appear to any considerable extent in English Archives—indeed their appearance there at any date before the late fifteenth century may be taken as fairly strong evidence of foreign influence—and concerning Roman numerals there was little to say. Moreover the subject had been recently dealt with by Dr. Hill. But in the period after 1500 Arabic figures begin slowly to fight their way into English Archives—i. e. into business writings; and since this (the Archive) class of documents is precisely that which was more or less closed to Dr. Hill it seems worth while to indicate in a preliminary sketch the types of document which may be of use to any student interested in further research along these lines; and to give the results of some tentative examination of them by the present writer, even when these are negative. The questions of interest are—where and when do Arabic figures make their entry into English Archives ? how far are they affected by being used in conjunction with the special Set Hands which were such a feature of Archive writing in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? how far do they retain any of the primitive forms ? and can these be used at all as criteria for dating ?
Worked Flints from the North Arabian Desert
Authors: Buxton L. H. Dudley
Published: January 2012

The old road from Damascus to Baghdad having been blocked by disturbances in Syria, the members of the 1925–6 Joint Oxford University (Weld) and Field Museum Expedition to Kish were compelled last winter to use the more southerly route over which the Nairn convoys were running. This is an eastward extension of the road -from Jerusalem to Jericho, and runs through Amman to Rutba Wells and Ramadi, whence it follows the valley to Baghdad. Having noticed worked flints during our halts on the journey, we asked and obtained permission from the Air Vice-Marshal, Sir John Higgins, to return with the armoured car patrol, under the command of Flight-Lieutenant Sweeny, who with his men rendered great assistance in the search for implements.
A Neolithic Site at Abingdon, Berks.
Authors: Leeds E. Thurlow
Published: January 2012

At the end of April of last year the Rev. Charles Overy drew my attention to the presence of broken animal bones, flints, and sherds of pottery in a gravel-pit on the south side of the road from Abingdon to Radley, about a mile out of Abingdon (fig. 1).

The pit lies on the very boundary of the parish of Abingdon in a field at about 200 ft. O.D., just over half a mile north of the Thames and some 30 ft. above the river. On its eastern and southern sides it is bounded by the wide trenches which in the days of the splendour of Abingdon Abbey formed part of the Abbey's fish-ponds ; on the north is the road, and on the east the ground drops to a little brook.
Carvings from the tomb of Guillaume de Ros, third abbot of Fécamp
Authors: Johnston Philip Mainwaring
Published: January 2012

The slabs on which are carved the bas-reliefs with which this paper is concerned are fastened by iron clamps or holdfasts to the south wall of the chapel of Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours, which is the easternmost of the lateral chapels of the choir of the Benedictine abbey church of Fécamp, on its southern side, immediately next to the chord of the apse and the chapels of its chevet. This chapel, and indeed all those on the south of the choir, date from the early years of the fourteenth century, when a daring scheme of rebuilding on a very lofty scale was begun during the abbacy of Thomas de St. Benoist (1297–1307).
Excavations at Ur, 1926–7. Part II
Authors: Woolley C. Leonard
Published: January 2012

During the second part of the season 1926–7 the Joint Expedition of the British Museum and the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania was engaged in excavating a cemetery, or rather cemeteries, lying inside the temenos wall and at the south-east end of the enclosure. In 1922, during the early days of our first season at Ur, we had dug here a trial trench of no great depth and had found several groups of pottery and some jewellery which, owing to its nearness to the surface, I had assumed to be of late date (see Ant. Journal, vol. iii (1923), pi. xxix). Work of this sort, however, could not be done satisfactorily with the absolutely untrained gang which we had just enrolled, and the discovery of the temple E-Nun-Mah in another part of the temenos enabled me to abandon what the men named ‘the Gold Trench’. Now, after four years, the time had come to complete the topography of the temenos by clearing up what was the only large area within its walls still untested. The negative results of our original trench—negative so far as walls were concerned— and the evident denudation of the site, did not inspire confidence, but the ground had to be proved, and there was at least the prospect of further discoveries of small objects.
A Fourteenth-century Well at the Bank of England
Authors: Dunning G. C.
Published: January 2012

It is well known that wooden vessels were in common use for domestic purposes in medieval times: dishes, bowls, etc., almost certainly made of this material are shown in use in the kitchen and at table in several documents, for instance, the Bayeux tapestry, the Luttrell Psalter, and Queen Mary's Psalter. It is seldom, however, that the actual wooden vessels are found in excavations on medieval sites: mention may be made of ‘two turned saucer-like bowls of beechwood, 8 in. in diameter, and about 1¼ in. deep’, found with other wooden objects and early medieval pottery in the filling of a deep shaft at Pevensey Castle.

A remarkable find was made in 1929 during excavations on the site of the Bank of England beneath the NW. side of the old Power of Attorney, that is, about 100 ft. south of the Lothbury frontage and 140 ft. west of the Bartholomew Lane frontage. A well, 7 ft. 6 in. in diameter, built of chalk blocks, of which nine courses remained, to a height of 5 ft. 6 in., had been sunk through the lower deposits into the gravel. The well was filled with greenish black slime, from which were extracted pottery vessels, a number of wooden bowls, a few broken animal bones, and a hen's egg. All the pottery appears to be of about the same date in the fourteenth century, and is of value as a group of associated types and in giving a date to the wooden bowls.
A Curious Type of Stone St. John's Head
Authors: Hildburgh W. L.
Published: January 2012

In certain continental museums there are examples of a curious form of detached St. John's Heads, made of a sort of hard alabaster, all so much alike as to indicate that they must all have been carved in one locality (and very probably in one workshop), and within a fairly short period of time. These heads, which seem clearly not to be English in origin—although by some scholars it has been assumed that they were—differ from medieval English alabaster carvings in character and in style, as well as in material.
Three Styles of Decoration on Anglo-Saxon Pottery
Authors: Myres J. N. L.
Published: January 2012

The types of decoration used on Anglo-Saxon pottery of the pagan period in England have never yet received the detailed analysis which their variety and historical importance deserve. The time has not yet come when a comprehensive study can be attempted, for the great bulk of the pottery concerned either remains unpublished or has been published so inadequately that the student is compelled to go back to the originals before coming to any conclusions. But it does already seem possible to isolate certain of the commoner elements of the decorative schemes employed and to investigate their history and affinities. In the following pages the attempt is prompted by the exhibition and publication of two urns from Lincolnshire and one from London, all of which are in private ownership. These three vessels happen to illustrate three characteristic styles of decoration which seem to be fundamental in this line of study, and the following remarks are offered without any undue dogmatism, in the hope that they may at least make a start in the elucidation of what is undoubtedly the most neglected of all pre-medieval groups of English ceramic material.
The Visor of a Fourteenth-century Bascinet found at Pevensey Castle
Authors: Mann James G.
Published: January 2012

On 24th November 1932 our Fellow Major C. J. ffoulkes exhibited a mysterious object that had been found during the restoration of Pevensey Castle. Almost immediately afterwards H.M. Office of Works produced from the same site an object about which there can be no doubt whatever. It is a visor of what is possibly the most striking of all medieval headpieces, the hounskull or pig-faced bascinet. Furthermore, it is the first recorded from an English site.
Some Recent Finds from the Trent near Nottingham
Authors: Phillips C. W.
Published: January 2012

During the past three years the work of the Trent Navigation Company in dredging the river above Nottingham has brought to light a number of interesting finds. The company's dredger has been removing large quantities of gravel from the river-bed, and in particular it has been dealing with the Clifton reach, where a large accumulation of gravel projecting from a point on the left bank directly opposite the downstream end of the tree-covered bluff called Clifton Grove has been cleared right away. This point is in the parish of Wilford, and here the river is nearly 100 yards broad with an almost straight course for a considerable distance between Clifton Grove and a wide expanse of level meadows on the left bank (fig. 1).
Diminutive Flint Implements of Pliocene and Pleistocene Age
Authors: Moir J. Reid , Burchell J.P.T.
Published: January 2012

The occurrence of diminutive flint implements in certain industries of the Stone Age has been recognized for many years. Such specimens have been supposed to make their first appearance in the Upper Aurignac (Late Palaeolithic) period; to have extended sparingly through the Solutre and La Madeleine epochs; and to have become very numerous in the transitional industrial stages between the latest palaeolithic and earliest neolithic horizons. This, we think, is a fair statement of the opinion held by the majority of present-day archaeologists. There are, however, on record certain discoveries of diminutive flint implements in deposits older than those of the Upper Aurignac period. Search has been made for notices of previous discoveries, but material available is unfortunately small. In 1908 M. Eugene Pittard announced the discovery, in the valley of the Rebieres, Dordogne, of what he terms a microlithic industry in flint of Lower Le Moustier age. The site is in the open air, and the section exposed contained both Le Moustier and Aurignac levels of occupation. The microlithic industry was found at the base of the deposits, beneath Le Moustier horizons. M. Pittard figures some 40 specimens, and there seems no doubt that these represent very small but definite implements made to fulfil some special purpose. His excellent illustrations show that these resemble a series discovered in a dry valley to the north of Ipswich some years ago. These specimens will be described later, and possibly some of them are contemporary with M. Pittard's implements. The only other reference we can find to the discovery of very small implements before the Upper Aurignac period is in one of the many papers published on the remarkable finds at Chou Kou Tien, near Peking, China. In the limestone caves and fissures at this place have been found numerous fragments of skulls and jawbones of a primitive race of man to which the name of Sinanthropus has been given. Associated with these relics was a large number of stone implements, made of various rocks, of peculiar and somewhat unfamiliar types.