52
ANTIQUITIES OF THE IRON-PERIOD.
period[1],
though they were not wholly composed of metal, but consisted of a frame of wood, covered with leather, in the midst of which was an iron boss, which received and protected the hand.
- ↑ The annexed cut represents the boss of a shield of the usual Saxon form, which with the accompanying horse's bit, buckle, and fragment of iron, (consisting of one large and two smaller rings,) were found in a barrow in Bourne Park, near Canterbury, opened by Lord Albert Conyngham, on the occasion of the British Archæologists visiting Canterbury.The next engraving is from the boss of a shield discovered in a tumulus on Breach Downs, near Canterbury, by the same nobleman in the month of September, 1841; the opening and examination of which are very fully described by his lordship in the Archæologia, vol. xxx. pp. 47—56.
While the following cuts from the Journal of the Archæological Association, vol. ii. p. 53, represent two bosses of very characteristic forms, differing however very considerably from those generally found in Kent and in the Isle of Wight, and which were discovered in 1844-5, in a field called Tanner's field, which from time immemorial has remained unbroken, and lies on the outskirts of Fairford, in Gloucestershire. T.
