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unusually good workmanship. Length 41 inches. specimen in the Dublin Museum, resembling this celt in its general fashion, is one of those selected by Sir W. R. Wilde, out of a series of 201 socketed celts, as types of the most remarkable varieties of form that the socketed celt assumes. He has described the example in question as "a slender socketed celt, 4 inches in length, of an irregular hexagon form in the middle, and circular in the slightly everted and decorated socket." In the example found at Ty Mawr, the termination has a more strongly defined "hatchet face;" the hexagonal form is continued to the mouth; the opening is of irregularly square form. Several other slightly varied specimens have occurred in Ireland.

IV. A small socketed dagger-blade, feather-edged, length somewhat more than 6 inches, in its present imperfect state. The blade is leaf-shaped, the socket oval, and pierced for a rivet that passed from front to rear, as most frequently found in objects of this description. In some specimens it passed from side to side. This type is distinctly, although not exclusively, Irish, and Sir W. R. Wilde enumerates 33 examples in the Dublin Museum. He supposes that the pommel was of wood, bone, or horn; the length of the metal portion varying from 33 to 11 inches. The socket is circular or quadrangular, and occasionally ornamented.2 A good example of this weapon, comparatively rare in England,

object, found in the co. Limerick, and presented by Mr. de Salis to the British Museum, is figured Ibid., vol. xxii. Another stone mould for spears had been found in co. Galway. Archæologia, vol. xv, p. 394.

1 Wilde, Catal. Mus. R. I. A., p. 384, No. 406. Compare the celt found at Roscrea, co. Tipperary, now in the British Museum. Hora Ferales, pl. v, fig. 11. Mr. Franks describes it as having the sides divided into three facets, the socket oval. A stone mould for socketed celts of similar form, but curiously ornamented, found in Ross-shire, is figured in Dr. Wilson's Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, vol. i, p. 346, second edit., and a casting from the mould, Ibid., p. 384.

2 Wilde, Catal. Mus. R. I. A, pp. 465, 483. Amongst examples figured, one, No. 218, found in the Shannon, is similar to that found at Ty Mawr. Hora Ferales, pl. x, p. 165. Two Irish specimens are in the Blackmore Muscum, Salisbury; also one from Burwell Fen,

is preserved in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries. It was found in 1802 with celts, broken swords, etc., and lumps of crude metal, at Lanant, Cornwall, and is figured Archeologia, vol. xv, p. 118. Length about 8 in. Some small gold bars were enclosed in one of the celts. Mr. Franks gives, in the Hora Ferales, a specimen with a short oval socket and two sets of rivet-holes; it was found at Thorndon, Suffolk, with a bronze gouge and other relics. This specimen, and also two obtained from Ireland, are in the British Museum. In recent excavations of pit-dwellings at Highdown Camp, Sussex, Colonel Lane Fox found, at a depth of 3 feet, a dagger of the same type, 8 inches in length, the point upwards; the socket is pierced for two rivets. The cavities in that stronghold are cut in the chalk, within the rampart, steps being formed around to descend into the pit.

v. An implement, unfortunately in imperfect state; length, in its present state, 31 inches; this is, doubtless, one of the four varieties of the chisel, namely, that described by Sir W. R. Wilde as having a broad axeshaped blade, a long slender spike or tang, and raised collar, against which the straight wooden handle abutted. There are thirteen specimens of this type in the Dublin Museum, ranging from 24 to 6 inches in length.' An example of this Irish type was in the collection of the late Mr. Crofton Croker; it is figured in a memoir on the classification of celts, by the Rev. T. Hugo. Length, 4 inches. A similar object was also found with bronze gouges, celts, and implements, chiefly of mechanical use, at Carlton Rode, Norfolk, in 1844; and another, with the like objects, at Westow, Yorkshire, as related by Mr. Yates, Arch. Journ., vol. vi, p. 381. Some of these, Cambridgeshire, length 8 in. It is part of a valuable collection temporarily deposited by Mr. H. Prigg, of Bury St. Edmund's, in which also occurs a bronze chisel, resembling fig. v of the relics above described. See also a similar weapon, found with others in Argyleshire, Wilson's Prehist. Annals, vol. i, p. 390.

2

1 Catal. Mus. R. I. A., p. 521, No. 75; length 64 inches. 2 Journ. Brit. Arch. Ass., vol. ix, p. 66, pl. 10.

now in the York Museum, are figured Journ. Arch. Assoc., vol. iii, p. 58. A specimen from Burwell Fen, near Reach, Cambridgeshire, part of a very interesting collection of bronze implements and relics, in possession of Mr. H. Prigg, of Bury St. Edmunds, was shewn to me. by Mr. Stevens in the Blackmore Museum, Salisbury.

VI. A slight, plain penannular armlet, diameter 2 inches, the inner side flat, the outer face of the hoop rounded; one extremity obtusely pointed, the other is slightly dilated, a feature often seen in the gold Irish armlets. These personal ornaments occur in great variety in Ireland; they have been sometimes classed amongst objects regarded as a kind of currency or "ring-money," but no reference to any such mode of barter, as Sir W. R. Wilde remarks, has been found in ancient records. Some of these rings, it is believed, were worn as bangles on the ancles. Usually each end. is dilated, and sometimes slightly cupped.1

VII. Several stout rings, diameter about 1 inch, probably cast in moulds: relics of this class occur abundantly in Ireland, frequently double, and varying greatly in dimensions.2 It may be remembered, that bronze rings occurred in the deposit of relics, mostly of Irish character, found at Llangwyllog, Anglesey, as described in the Arch. Journal, and also in the Arch. Cambrensis.3

VII. Amber beads, of various sizes, and more than commonly symmetrical in form; diameter of the largest beads somewhat more than an inch. A necklace of amber beads, of large dimensions, was likewise found with the antiquities at Llangwyllog. A number of amber beads occurred with the gold corslet found at Mold, and now in the British Museum, where a single specimen of the beads is also to be seen.

1 Wilde, Catal. Mus. R. I. A., p. 570. 2 lbid., p. 577, and following pages. There are not less than 578 bronze rings of various fashion in the museum of the R. I. Academy, exclusive of finger-rings and the like.

3 Arch. Journ., vol. xxii, p. 74; Arch. Camb., vol. xii, third series, p. 97, where notices of amber beads discovered in the British Islands may also be found.

It is with gratification that I would here record the liberality of Mr. Stanley, by whom the whole of the curious relics above described have been presented to the National Depository.

I proceed to notice a relic of considerable interest found in 1828 at Pen y Bonc (head of the bank), about a quarter of a mile south of the cyttiau at Ty Mawr. It is a necklace formed of jet, or possibly cannel coal of excellent quality and highly polished; it was found, as stated, in a kind of rock grave-a sepulchral cist rudely

[graphic]

Fig. 8. Probable arrangement of the Jet Necklace found at Pen y Bonc, Holyhead Island.

hewn out. Two urns were likewise found in the cavity, but on exposure they fell, as was reported, into fragments that were not preserved. Unfortunately, a number of the beads, and other portions of which this ornament had been composed, were missing; they had probably been dispersed when the discovery occurred, a mischance that too frequently happens, such a find being casually brought to light without any supervision. When I made the sketches from which the woodcuts have been prepared by Mr. Blight, I found two endportions, of which the reverse of one is figured, four oblong four-sided pieces, of which the obverse is shown in one woodcut, and the reverse, in the other, so as to indicate the arrangement by which the intervening rows

of beads were adjusted, strung on threads that passed through perforations contrived with considerable ingenuity. There were also many beads of various sizes; a triangular object, the intention of which has not been ascertained, and a flat conical button perforated on its under side; these last may have formed parts of the fastening. Of all these, however, the woodcuts, of the full size of the originals, will supply an accurate notion; they are accompanied by a representation of a necklace, such as--after careful comparison of other examples-I believe that the ornament in its perfect state may have been. This valuable relic was exhibited at a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries, in March, 1844, by the late Lord Stanley of Alderley.1

According to the account of this discovery, as given by Hugh Hughes, tenant of the adjacent farm, the rock grave, in the corner of which the jet necklace lay, measured about 3 feet in each direction; it was covered by a slab of stone. Besides the "crockery," he stated that armlets of bronze were found in the cist; according to another report, there was also a "penny piece," probably a coin. He remembers, moreover, to have seen three or four foundations of houses near the site of this deposit, of rectangular form, long uninhabited; they were formed of large stones, and known as "Ty Adda" and "Ty Efa" (Adam's and Eve's Houses), indicating a tradition of the unknown antiquity of these dwellings.

The jet (gagates) of Britain was highly esteemed by the Romans, and many highly beautiful ornaments exist found in this country with Roman remains. It had been, however, employed at a much earlier period, as we may infer from numerous relics found throughout the British Islands, and it is very possible that certain physical or phylacteric properties had been attributed to jet in times long antecedent to the period when Pliny, Solinus, and other writers, described its inflammable quality, its power of attracting small objects, when rubbed, like amber, and various recondite medicinal

1 Proceedings Soc. Ant., vol. i, p. 34.

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