here represented, (No. 5.); a little mark is punched near the extremities, on both sides, but this did not appear to have any distinctive intention: any person was permitted to fabricate ring-money; it passed current by weight; the gold is so flexible, that the rings are readily opened, to be linked into a chain for the convenience of keeping them together, and as readily detached, when a payment was to be made.
Mr. Bingham has also kindly supplied drawings of two open grooved rings of gold, found in Dorsetshire, of a type not hitherto noticed. Their fashion and dimensions are shown by the annexed wood-cuts. The smaller specimen, (No. 6.), in the possession of Mr. Charles Hall, weighs 23 grs. The second (No, 7.) is in the collection of Mr. Charles Warne, and weighs 10 dwts., 18 grs., (258 grs., divisible exactly by six.) The grooves, Mr. Bingham suggests, may possibly indicate graduation in value. The notion had struck him, proposed likewise by Colonel Vallancey, that penannular ornaments might have served as nose-rings, the narrow opening serving to clip the septum of the nose.[1]
An interesting crescent-shaped variety of the gold "penannular" ornaments is preserved in the valuable Museum formed by the Hon. Richard Neville, at Audley End. By his obliging permission it is here represented, (No. 8.) It was recently found by a labouring man named Bass, on the Dairy Farm, Thaxted, in Essex. The weight is 240 grains, verifying the remark that the weight of these rings is generally divisible by six. I have not seen any similar English example of plain rings of gold, gradually tapering towards their extremities. The annular horned ornament of brass, plated with gold, found by Sir R. Colt Hoare in a tumulus near Amesbury, with objects of gold, bears some resemblance to this, but the broad part is perforated, as if for suspension. (Ancient Wilts, Vol. i., Pl. XXV. p. 201.) There is a representation of a ring, precisely resembling Mr. Neville's, found in Ireland, with others of silver, communicated to the Society of Antiquaries by the Bishop of Meath, and given in the Archaeologia, Vol. ii., Pl. I. It is described as "a small lunular fibula of gold." Rings of this crescent type, either
- ↑ Vallancey, Collect, de Rebus Hibern., vol. vi., p. 270. Compare the account of customs of the savage natives of Nootka-sound, described in Cook's Voyages, vol. ii., edit. 1785, p. 305. The supposition that nose-rings were used in Britain had been admitted by Scotch antiquaries. See the gold armillæ, ear-rings and nose-rings (as conjectured) found in a rude urn in Bamffshire. Archaeologia Scotica, vol. iv., Pl. XII.
