It is almost exactly twenty-five years ago that Sir Arthur Evans, then President of the Society, read his annual address at the first anniversary-meeting after the outbreak of the last war. On that occasion he had to deplore the extensive destruction of churches and houses, of libraries and works of art, which had marked the advance of the German armies through Belgium into northern France. Sir Arthur then cited the pronouncement of the Prussian General Disfurth in which he set forth the German Army's view of such matters: ‘Even though all the monuments, all the works of art, all the masterpieces of architecture which happen to come between our guns and those of the enemy are blown to the devil it will be nothing to us.’ We can, I think, be assured that the same views are current in the same quarters to-day and, when and if the opportunity arrives, a destruction, enforced by a deeper malice and a wider capacity, will be loosed upon the monuments of our history and our culture.

The collection of continental European and Anglo-Saxon jewellery dating from the second half of the first millennium of our era in the Ashmolean Museum, though of no great size, has for many years been noted for its quality, including, as it does, the fine series of ornaments and rings collected by Sir John Evans and presented in 1908 by Sir Arthur Evans, together with such outstanding pieces as the Alfred Jewel and the Minster Lovel jewel. To these have more recently been added important gold rings, a further gift from Sir Arthur Evans, and the magnificent brooch from Sarre, Kent, purchased in 1934.

In the early half of this year an unexpended balance of a grant from the bequest of Mr. George Flood France, allotted by the Visitors of the Museum for the purchase of objects of art, allowed the Department of Antiquities to contemplate the acquisition of yet another important jewel, and by the help of a supplementary grant which the Trustees of the National Art-Collections Fund generously promised to contribute if needed, there has now been added to the collection a gold ring of the finest quality, its interest enhanced by the presence of a runic inscription engraved on the inside of the hoop (pl. L).

The work of art here to be published was found in the excavations of 1938 at Elmswell, about two miles west of Driffield in the East Riding of Yorkshire (6-in. O.S. Yorks. E.R. CLXISE.). These excavations, following on those carried out by our Fellow Mr. A. L. Congreve from 1935 to 1937; have shown the site to be that of a native settlement of the Parisi, occupied—probably continuously—at least from Flavian times until the end of the Roman period, and again in pagan Saxon times. Of the pre-Roman Iron Age nothing has yet come to light beyond two British coins, one of the Iceni (c. A.D. 25) and one possibly of Cunobelin, but the site is separated by little more than the line of the Driffield—Malton railway from the Eastburn area where, in building operations in 1938, as many as seventy-five Iron Age graves were discovered even in the relatively small plots of ground excavated. These contained the remains of flexed inhumation-burials, each originally covered by a small barrow, exactly as in the well-known Danes' Graves and Arras cemeteries; and the date within the three centuries directly preceding the Roman Conquest was confirmed by several finds of grave-goods, notably an iron sword of La Tène type, bronze ornaments, an ‘involuted’ brooch, and several vessels of pottery. Further, in another part of the same site, Parisian pottery of Roman age was found, the earliest of which agrees exactly with the earliest from Elmswell. There can in fact be little doubt that this whole area was an important centre of settlement in the east Yorkshire equivalent of La Tène times, where ‘the Iron Age B’ culture of the Parisi passed directly into the romanization that was introduced at the Flavian conquest of the early seventies A.D.

Of the two linch-pins which form the subject of this article, one was found at King's Langley, Herts., in 1937, and has recently been acquired by the British Museum. The second was found in 1938 at Tiddington, near Stratford-on-Avon. It was exhibited at the Exhibition of Recent Archaeological Research, 1933–8, at the Institute of Archaeology, Regents Park, and is now in the New Place Museum at Stratford-on-Avon. To the authorities of both museums I am indebted for permission to publish this article. I have also to thank the curators of the Musée Nationale de St. Germain, of the Musée Municipale d'Évreux, and of the Maidstone Museum respectively for allowing me to illustrate the linch-pins from Nanterre, from Évreux, and from Bigbury. I had hoped to include the specimens from Cirencester and from Chedworth, but circumstances have not permitted. Mr. C. F. C. Hawkes and Mr. M. R. Hull have very kindly put the as yet unpublished material from Colchester at my disposal. Mr. H. N. Savory called my attention to the linch-pin from Merlin's Cave, and Mr. R. R. Clarke to those in the Santon Downham hoard.

It is to the ancient practice of suspending the funeral insignia of the deceased over his tomb that we owe the survival of our few existing English helms. Foreign visitors to our country churches often express their surprise at finding these relics still in situ. The practice also obtained on the Continent, but surviving instances there are very much rarer than here. Despite our innate conservatism, many church helmets must have disappeared through decay, indifference, and, latterly, the avarice of collectors. That they are not yet safe from spoliation was shown by a case which came before the Courts last year.