Balcalk,[1] Tealing, in the same county. Another of over 100 beads was found at Mountstuart,[2] Bute.
The plates are occasionally of amber; a set of six such, together 7 inches by 218 inches in extreme length and breadth, perforated and accompanied by upwards of forty amber beads, some of jet, two of horn, and others of "the vitrified sort called pully-beads," representing seven spherical beads joined together, were found with burnt bones in a barrow at Kingston Deverill,[3] Wilts. Another ornament of the same character, formed of eight tablets, together upwards of 10 inches by 3 inches, with numerous amber beads and some gold studs (?), was found with a skeleton in a barrow near Lake.[4] In what was probably another necklace, also from Lake, many of the beads were round pendants, tapering upwards, and slightly conical at the bottom. A necklace composed of small rounded beads, and somewhat similar pendants of amber, was found near the neck of a contracted skeleton at Little Cressingham, Norfolk.[5] By the side lay a bronze dagger and javelin-head, and on the breast an ornamented oblong gold plate. Near it was part of a gold armilla, one very small gold box, and remains of two others.
In one of the Upton Lovel barrows, examined by Mr. Cunnington, a burnt body was accompanied by somewhat similar little boxes of gold, thirteen drum-like gold beads perforated at two places in the sides, a large plate of thin gold highly ornamented, the conical stud covered with gold already described (p. 456), some large plates of amber like those from Kingston Deverill, and upwards of 1,000 amber beads. A small bronze dagger seems to have belonged to the same deposit. I am inclined to think that the so-called gold boxes may have been merely the coverings of some discs of wood perforated horizontally, and thus forming large flat gold-plated beads. The gold itself is not perforated, but the edges appear in the engraving to be much broken. Possibly the supposed lids and boxes were in both cases the coverings of one face only of a wooden bead.[6] From the occurrence of weapons in these interments, it seems probable that this class of decoration was not confined to the female sex, but that, like most savages, the men of Ancient Britain were as proud of finery as the women, even if they did not excel them in this particular. A necklace of large spheroidal beads of amber was found at Llangwyllog,[7] Anglesea.
I am not aware of any of the jet necklaces having occurred on the Continent, but beads and flat plates of amber perforated in several places horizontally have been found in the ancient cemetery at Hallstatt, in the Salzkammergut of the Austrian Tyrol.
In several instances, jet necklaces do not comprise any of these flat plates, but consist merely of a number of flat discoidal beads- ↑ Proc. S. A. S., vol. xiv. p. 261; xxv. p. 65.
- ↑ Proc. S. A. S., vol. xxvi. p. 6.
- ↑ Hoare, "South Wilts," p. 46. See also "Cat. Devizes Mus.," No. 173a.
- ↑ A. C. Smith, "Ants. of N. Wilts," pp. 18, 19. Wilts Arch. Mag., vol. xvi. pp. 179, 181. (These objects are now in the British Museum.)
- ↑ "Norfolk Archæology," vol. iii. p. 1.
- ↑ "Cat. Devizes Mus.," Nos. 56, 57. In the Archæologia, vol. xv. pl. vii., the rim and the top or bottom of the box are shown as quite distinct. Mr. Cunnington thought they might have covered the ends of staves.
- ↑ Arch. Camb., 3rd. S., vol. xii. p. 110.
