I beg to lay before the Society of Antiquaries a copy of the Inventory of the Goods of Archbishop Parker, exhibited by his son, John Parker, esq., as executor, in 1577. The original is on a roll of parchment (consisting of nine pieces) seventeen feet and a quarter in length, by seven inches and a quarter in breadth, and is in a state of complete preservation.

The survey of Kingsdown Camp began on 12th August 1927, and digging in that year was in progress from 15th August to 27th August. In 1928 operations were continued from 7th February to 1st March, and from 10th April to 5th May. The work was completed in 1929, from 8th April to 24th April, and from 7th October to 19th October.

In the latter part of November in the past year I heard that in the course of operations consequent upon the widening of a portion of the Grantham, Sleaford, and Boston Railway, there had been several discoveries of human remains, accompanied by beads, fibulae, pottery, and spears. I was therefore led to ask permission to make a systematic exploration of the locality. Through the kind favour of the Marquis of Bristol, the owner of the property, of his kinsman and representative, R. H. Hervey, Esq., and by the courtesy of the tenant, J. H. Marston, Esq., I was enabled to carry out what I believe to be an exhaustive examination.

Discovered in a potato barn in a small Devonshire village in 1827 (fig. I), the ‘Armada Service’ is one of the most important groups of English silver to have been found in England. It consists of a set of twenty-six parcel-gilt dishes, engraved with the arms of Sir Christopher Harris of Radford, Devon (c. 1553–1625), and those of his wife, Mary Sydenham (fig. 2). The dishes form part of the dining silver accumulated by Sir Christopher between 1581 and 1602, whenever cash or metal was available to be converted by London goldsmiths into this recognized, tangible evidence of wealth and social status. The ‘Armada Service’ is the unique survival of a type of utilitarian plate which is listed in the inventories of the gentry and aristocracy of the late Tudor and early Stuart periods. Undecorated plate of this sort would have been particularly vulnerable in times of financial need, since its bullion value far outweighed its decorative appeal.

The ingenious and persistent researches of the Swedish geologist, Baron Gerard de Geer, have taught us when the last Ice Period came to an end here in the north. The ice began to melt and retire from the southern coast of Scania 15,000 years before our time. There cannot be more than an error of a few centuries in this calculation.

But the southern border of the enormous ice-masses covering the north of Europe in the last Ice Period was not on the south coast of Scania; it lay farther south, in Brandenburg. It is uncertain what length of time was necessary for the ice to retire from Brandenburg to Scania. However, if we consider how slowly the melting was going on in the first millenniums, and how long it took for the ice to melt in the southern part of Sweden, it is highly probable that about 5,000 years were required to transfer the ice border from its most southerly point to Scania. Consequently, the beginning of the melting period in our northern region, i.e. the end of the last Ice Period in northern Europe, must fall about 20,000 years before our time.

During the excavations at Colchester in 1950, in Insula 22 of the Colonia, the Norman Bank was sectioned. An account has been given of the underlying Roman structures, but not of the later phases of this earthwork. They consisted of the Norman Bank itself and a later make-up.

An interesting finger-ring, presumably of Phoenician origin, was brought to my notice as having been found in a rock-cut tomb in Malta. The owner was unable or unwilling to give any details as to the conditions under which the ring was found, but he is positive that it was given to him by a farmer who found the ring himself. The ring appears to have such exceptional features that I thought it my duty to describe it for the benefit of those who may be interested in this branch of archaeology.

The site is to be found on sheet 38 W. of the 6 in. O.S. in the area surrounding the small cross-roads (B.M. 255 ft.) about three-quarters of a mile north-west of Standlake church on the way to Hardwick. From the gently rising ground at this point one can look across the valleys of the Windrush and Thames (210 O.D. at New Bridge), and over the Faringdon–Cumnor Corallian ridge to the Berkshire Downs beyond. The arable fields which to-day cover the slope (‘Standlake Down’) are rather bleak and featureless, as the gravel terraces in this sector of the Oxford Basin tend to be; but from the Bronze Age onwards they were sufficiently attractive to maintain a relatively large population.

In our Proceedings xvi, 174, is an illustration of a bronze weight found at Grove Ferry, near Fordwich, Kent, and exhibited by Col. Copeland, who subsequently presented it to the British Museum. There is a description by bur present President, with references to other weights from Kentish graves of the sixth century, which were later studied by Mr. Fred. Seebohm; but it has recently been re-weighed, and its value found to be 576 troy (or barley) grains, not 575 grains. The difference is trifling, but enough to emphasize the fact that it is exactly one-tenth of the troy pound. On each face are 22 impressions of the same stamp, arranged in different ways, and therefore in this case probably ornamental. The decimal division of the pound is found in Republican Rome, but there the pound was 5760 and the ounce 576 wheat grains, four of which are equivalent to three barley or troy grains. However, I can find no evidence that the above hint has ever been taken in order to explain the weight-system of our pagan forefathers in England. For this purpose let it be supposed that the troy pound, which is not named before the fifteenth century, was divided in two ways. In the tables G stands for grammes of 154 grains, and an asterisk distinguishes weights that exactly agree with the standard.

The results of five seasons of excavation (1971–5) are summarized. A continuous strip 30–40 m. wide extending across the centre of the fort from one side to the other was completely excavated revealing pits, gullies, circular stake-built houses, rectangular buildings, and 2-, 4-, and 6-post structures, belonging to the period from the sixth to the end of the second century B.C. The types of structures are discussed. A sequence of development, based largely upon the stratification preserved behind the ramparts, is presented: in the sixth–fifth century the hill was occupied by small four-post ‘granaries’ possibly enclosed by a palisade. The first hill-fort rampart was built in the fifth century protecting houses, an area of storage pits, and a zone of 4-and 6-post buildings laid out in rows along streets. The rampart was heightened in the third century, after which pits continued to be dug and rows of circular houses were built. About 100 B.C. rectangular buildings, possibly of a religious nature, were erected, after which the site was virtually abandoned. Social and economic matters are considered. The excavation will continue.

In 1942 the generosity of the Trustees of Henry Christy enabled the Department of British and Medieval Antiquities at the British Museum to acquire an Anglo-Saxon square-headed brooch of considerable interest (pl. VII a and fig. 1), said to come from the Martyrs' Field, Canterbury. It is of silver-gilt and 8–5 cm. long, with decoration first cast and then touched up by the chisel.

One of the most impressive features of Scandinavian archaeology in the fifth and sixth centuries of our era is the wealth of gold which the three countries enjoyed during that period, more particularly Denmark and southern Sweden. About its source there can be little doubt, for it can hardly be regarded as other than deriving from direct subsidies bestowed by successive Roman emperors as deterrents to the restless tribes lying immediately beyond the frontier of the empire. Eventually it reached Scandinavia in the hands of tribes whose movement from south Russia constituted one of the streams which diffused the Gothic culture over a large part of Europe during the migration period.

Owing to the war I was unable to prepare for publication an account of the 1939 excavations at Atchana on which I had read a paper to the Society; the report was begun but never finished. Since then there have been fresh excavations (in the spring of 1946), but as the new work was on a comparatively small scale and was planned as a complement to the 1939 season, even covering in part the same area, it is far better to treat of the results of the two seasons together. I propose therefore in this report to describe the private houses and the Palace of Yarim-Lim, of which the former were entirely and the latter was mainly excavated in 1939, and to reserve for a subsequent report the description of the Temple site discovered in 1939 but thoroughly excavated in 1946, and of the stratigraphical results obtained mostly in the latter season.

Among various tools and other objects of iron included in two hoards of blacksmith's scrap recovered from the bottom of a pit and a well during the excavations at Silchester in 1894 and 1900 were some plough coulters (pl. LXXVIII, I ), the importance of which in connexion with agriculture in Britain during the Roman period has hitherto passed unnoticed. Six examples altogether were found, and although each varies somewhat in size they are generally of the same form and character. They may be described as heavy iron bars, roughly octagonal in shape and from 1 to 1Image-1 in. in section, with one end forged into a knife-like form resembling the blade of the ordinary Roman butcher's-knife or ‘culter’. The blades are from 7Image-2 to 9 in. long and 3 to 3Image-3 in. in breadth at their upper end, tapering to a point at the lower end. In length overall they vary from 26Image-4 to 28 in., with one exception, which has obviously been broken off short in use. They are all much worn, which no doubt accounts for their having been consigned to the scrap-heap. The circumstances of their finding leave no possible doubt that they belong to the Roman period, but no coins or other associated objects allow of any precise date being fixed.

The well-known bronze figure of a centaur and rider (pl. viii) now in the Royal Albert Memorial Museum at Exeter was found on the beach at the foot of the cliffs (near two geological faults) about 200 yards east of the little river Sid by some fishermen in 1840.

The only other recorded discoveries of Roman objects at Sidmouth consist of a few coins on the sea beach—a ‘first brass’ of Vespasian, a Commodus of A.D. 183, and a small brass of Constantine I (as well as a Bactrian copper)—and others in Sidmouth or the neighbourhood, while pottery of the first, and perhaps second, century A.D., ultimately from the Early Iron Age hill-fort at High Peak, two miles south-west of Sidmouth, has also been noted. The nearest site of any Roman structure is at Seaton, some nine or ten miles to the northeast, where traces of a Roman house have been observed. Until something more substantial has been discovered we can only conclude that the little harbour at the mouth of the river Sid in the Roman period was visited by a few travellers, but not extensively inhabited. It may even be that the bronze object, though of Roman date, was brought by a post-Roman traveller, or decorated a bowsprit when Sidmouth harbour was in use at a later date.

The object comprises a group of a centaur with rider and charging beast set on a pedestal which rests on a shank, now broken; at the top of the shank and immediately below the pedestal is a heavy hook-like bracket. The whole measures 7 in. high (from the top of the centaur's head to the bottom of the broken shank) and 5 in. at its maximum width. It has been cast and is hollow, and is very much worn by the action of the sea, a pebble being still lodged in the mouth and another under the arm of the centaur. The shank also is hollow, about 1½ in. deep, and filled with lead, perhaps in modern times.

The pottery described in the present paper is that found during the excavation of the site of a small Romano-British settlement on Thundersbarrow Hill in Sussex. The work was carried out by Dr. E. C. Curwen in the spring of 1932, and is described by him in the preceding paper.