beads, usually of jet, amber, or bone, generally of jet alone, but sometimes of two of these materials together. It is, of course, almost impossible to re-arrange a group of beads, often more than a hundred in number, in the exact order in which they were originally worn; there are, however, frequently several peculiarly formed plates found with the beads, which seem susceptible of being arranged in but one particular order, so that it appears probable that the manner in which some of these necklaces have been reconstructed, as in Fig. 375, is not far from being correct.
Fig. 375.—Assynt, Ross-shire.
The original was found in an urn within a barrow at Assynt, Ross-shire,[1] and is here represented about one-fourth size, in a cut from Wilson's "Prehistoric Annals of Scotland," kindly lent me by Messrs. Macmillan. The flat beads, which are perforated obliquely from the edges towards the back, have patterns engraved upon them now studded with minute specks of sand,[2] which resemble gold. Besides those figured, there were present a number of irregularly oval jet beads. Other such necklaces have been found at Torrish,[3] Sutherlandshire (with flint arrow-heads), at Tayfield,[4] Fife (in a cist), and at Lunan-head,[5] near Forfar, in a cairn.
In most cases the flat beads of these necklaces are ornamented by having dotted or striated patterns worked upon them by means of some sharp-pointed instrument. These markings also occur on the bone or ivory portions, when the necklace, as is sometimes the case, is formed of a mixture of bone and jet or Kimmeridge shale.
A necklace ornamented in this manner was found, with a female skeleton, by the late Mr. Bateman, in a barrow near Hargate Wall, Derbyshire.[6] He describes the flat plates as being of ivory. Two other somewhat similar necklaces were found by the same explorer with a contracted female skeleton in a cist in a barrow at Cow Low,- ↑ Wilson, "P. A. of S.," vol. i. p. 435. Arch. Scot., vol. iii. p. 49, pl. v. Proc. S. A. S., vol. iii. p. 47. "Cat. A. I. Mus. Ed.," p. 15.
- ↑ Arch., vol. xliii. p. 515.
- ↑ Proc. S. A. S., vol. viii. p. 409.
- ↑ Proc. S. A. S., vol. viii. p. 412.
- ↑ Proc. S. A. S., vol. xii. p. 294.
- ↑ "Vest. Ant. Derb.," p. 89. Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. ii. p. 234.
