The conditions under which the beautiful carved ivory fragment illustrated on pl. I, fig. 1, was discovered may be given in the words of Mr. H. H. King, through whose friendly intervention it has been added to the collections in the British Museum. The discovery was made in 1920 on Mr. King's land by his gardener, in the spring following the filling in of the trenches which he describes, while fragments of tile and stone were being collected from the surface of the replaced soil to fill in a hollow place in a garden path.

It might have been thought that after eight campaigns—extending back to 1900 and supplemented by minor investigations—the Palace site of Knossos would have been pretty well exhausted. The work indeed on my first volume about the House of Minos had brought out certain lacunas in the evidence which it was of the first importance to fill in, and the probings that it had been possible to carry out in the period immediately preceding the Great War led me to the conclusion that the site, if seriously attacked, might still be productive of archaeological surprises.

The silver spoons in the Dorchester Museum, exhibited by Capt. Acland, F.S.A., were discovered in 1898 or 1899 on the Somerleigh Court Estate, in Dorchester, a prolific Roman site. The coins belonging to the find, over fifty in number, are all siliquae, dating from Julian II to Honorius (A. D. 360–400); among them is one coin of Licinius I, A. D. 317, which is probably intrusive. The coins, examined by my colleague, Mr. H. Mattingly, and to be published in the Numismatic Chronicle later in the present year, thus give the second half of the fourth century as the probable date of the find, a period with which the general character of the spoons is in agreement. The silver object figured with the spoons belongs to a small class represented in England and perhaps used as manicure knives. There is a specimen with a long handle and smaller blade in the British Museum.

English folk are apt to think that other nations have greater advantages than they in such matters as the exploration and study of foreign archaeological or historical sites, and feel resentful at times that the British Government exhibits an apathy that is little less than deplorable. Our American friends would appear to possess unlimited resources, not only now, but for many years past, that have enabled them to pursue their researches in Egypt, Greece, and Assyria, while Carnegie endowments have dispatched another group to dig even in Balkh, a city for many years forbidden to Englishmen. The French explore, and take to Paris, the treasures of Persepolis, find the money to establish institutes or other centres of French influence and culture, in Rome, Madrid, and elsewhere. Their school of living oriental languages in Paris had been in existence for many long years before England thought fit to do anything to encourage the study of Eastern tongues in this country. England seems to be incapable of supporting a journal of Oriental art such as has flourished for years past in Berlin, though in part maintained by English scholars. Meanwhile, we in England do our individual best to supplement these deficiencies, though it is seldom that an effort is made to understand the reasons that underlie and explain these marked differences between the English standpoint and that of other countries. Defective and incomplete methods of education are without doubt responsible in a great degree. Nearly every member of this audience must have had the experience, in speaking in ordinary society of some discussion that has taken place at one of our meetings, of seeing the look of blank and complete ignorance that comes over the countenance of his neighbour at the mention of almost any archaeological situation or problem. Such knowledge is relegated by the ordinary citizen to a realm peopled by such special subjects as the higher mathematics or the latest discoveries in bacteriology or chemistry. He feels not the least shame in confessing profound ignorance of the past history of his own country, and frankly regards any one possessing such knowledge as being given over to odd and queer pursuits, a kind of alchemist. It may be that the rising generation will be better equipped, as some slight return for the countless millions that are to be spent on the training of its mind. It will no doubt be urged, in certain quarters, that there is ‘no money’ in knowledge of the kind, which may seem superficially true. But even on this point there is something to be said on the other side. My friend Mr. Gordon Selfridge has for years past been providing his “staff” with lectures upon all kinds of subjects, mostly quite unrelated to the demands of his business. His reason is that he believes that the additional knowledge of any kind that his employees may possess is likely to make them more effective in their special functions. If so enterprising and competent a modern man of business takes this view, and is willing to spend money in putting it into practice, it would surely not be amiss to extend its operation into the world at large, and for the same reason. Both in theory and from personal experience, I am strongly in favour of a broad and solid foundation of general knowledge as the best initial training for specialist pursuits.

In Sir William Wilde's Catalogue of Bronze Antiquities is described and illustrated under the heading of chariot furniture an iron-backed bronze disc, 3¾ in. in diameter, coated with white metal, projecting from which is a bronze stud in the form of a dog's head, 1½ in. long, with a human head engraved on its muzzle. The stud is threaded by a bronze chain made up of two rings and double loops (fig. 1, 1). Wilde considered this object was intended for the attachment of a trace. It was found when making a railway cutting near Navan Station adjoining the River Boyne in July 1848, associated with a quantity of human remains; the skull of a horse; a number of antiquities including a bronze bridle-bit, and harness-plate; iron rings plated with bronze; some small bronze buttons; and seven ornamented gilt-bronze plaques.

In a brief note, appended to an account of ‘A Burial of the Early Bronze Age discovered at Berden’, Essex, by Messrs. Guy Maynard and G. M. Benton, Mr. A. G. Wright, Curator of the Colchester Museum, raises the question whether the globular-bodied beakers of Lord Abercromby's type A originated in South Britain, and suggests the possibility of approximately contemporaneous landings of the people who introduced the beakers at more than one point on the coasts of Britain. This suggestion is contested by Lord Abercromby himself in a short reply following Mr. Wright's note.

The three plaques of ivory here illustrated are already well known to students of such work, but there has been some uncertainty as to the form in which they were originally joined together. One of them, representing the Eagle of the Evangelist St. John, is in the Victoria and Albert Museum,1 for which it was acquired in 1867 from the Webb Collection; the other two, with the Angel of St. Matthew and a half-length figure of Christ, are now in the Museo Nazionale at Ravenna.

In April last the Society published two gold crescents found in Cornwall and now in Truro Museum; and in view of the proximity of Ireland, it is not surprising that others have been found; but the present exhibit (figs. 1–3) is the most important of its kind, being the only case in which anything to indicate a precise date has been found with gold crescents anywhere. Mr. George Penrose, Local Secretary, and Curator of Truro Museum, sent with the three objects in question the following information:

‘The two gold crescents (figs. 1, 2) and bronze celt (fig. 3) sent for exhibition were found together, close to the edge of a low cliff at Harlyn or Perlaze Bay, near Padstow, Cornwall, sometime during the year 1864.

Hoards of ancient bronze, however unimportant they may seem, are apt to throw much light on the Bronze Age, and all such finds should be placed on record.

Deposited on loan in the Colchester Museum is a bronze founder's hoard discovered in a cavity of the chalk at Grays Thurrock, Essex, in 1906. From the number of pieces and the variety of types comprised it is certainly remarkable, but has remained unpublished. It comprises some 298 pieces, including several fine implements and weapons, numerous fragments of others broken and worn-out and collected as metal, lumps of copper and bronze, waste pieces and imperfect castings, and a portion of a bronze mould for casting socketed celts. The various items are tabulated in groups:

33 socketed celts, lengths' 4·9 to 2·7 in.

71 imperfect ditto and fragments.

I winged celt, length 4·8 in.

2 imperfect ditto, similar.

Among the socketed celts one fine specimen, length 4·9 in., square in section and quite plain except for a bold moulding round the mouth, is worthy of notice. The remainder range in length from 4·4 to 2·7 in., and vary considerably in the form of their sockets and in style of decoration.

The document printed below has been recently discovered in the muniment room at Dunster Castle, incorporated in a roll of accounts of Sir Hugh Luttrell, who died in 1428. Its presence there is not inexplicable, for Sir Hugh's mother, Lady Elizabeth Luttrell, was sister to Lady Margaret Cobham, wife to Sir John Cobham, styled also ‘Le Sire de Cobham’, both being daughters of Hugh Courtenay, earl of Devon.

The site of an Early Iron Age village on All Cannings Cross Farm, about six miles east of Devizes, was discovered quite by chance. In this corn-growing country great open ploughed fields fringe the lower slopes of the high chalk downs. At All Cannings Cross the ploughed land stretches to the foot of Tan Hill and Clifford's Hill, on the Marlborough Downs, overlooking the vale of Pewsey. The site of the settlement has been under plough for many years, perhaps for centuries, so that any surface indications there may once have been, have long since disappeared.

On page 86 of the 2nd edition (1912) of the late J. R. Allen's Celtic Art is the statement, ‘Of the smaller Hallstatt sword with an iron blade and a bronze handle, having antennae-like projections at the top, one specimen from the Thames is to be seen in the British Museum, and there are about half a dozen others in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin.’ Déchelette (Manuel, ii, 2nd part, page 737 and note 3) repeated this on Allen's authority. But no swords of this type have, I believe, been discovered in Ireland. As no examples have been exhibited with the Academy's collection it is difficult to account for the mistake.

The article on Stonehenge that appeared in the January number of the Nineteenth Century demands consideration. The writer, Mr. E. Herbert Stone, after re-stating and defending Sir Norman Lockyer's views, which I shall presently explain, notices ‘some criticisms’, including those of Mr. Arthur Hinks and my own. ‘Rice Holmes’, he says, ‘sets forth the old arguments in favour of the Bronze Age theory, many of which are fallacious … the deservedly high position occupied by Mr. Rice Holmes in the literary world has led some archaeologists, who have not understood the technicalities of the subject, to accept his opinions without question’.

The archer's bracer illustrated in the fig. on p. 209 is of cuir bouilli, the ornament on the outer side consisting of a rose crowned, a design of oak leaves and acorns treated in a conventional manner, and the words (Jesus help).

A tradition, apparently not very ancient, associated this rare and interesting object with certain relics of Henry VI once at Bolton Hall, near Sawley, in Bowland (Bolland), Yorkshire. I have failed to find confirmation of this tradition, and it is contradicted by Mr. W. A. Littledale, F.S.A., whose family was long connected with Bolton Hall; Mr. Littledale informs me that the bracer was never preserved in the house with the objects said to have been left there by Henry VI and now preserved at Liverpool. But additional evidence may be derived from the object itself.

Since the excavations at Avebury it has been a mystery that the Ditch inside the bank surrounding the greatest stone circle in the world should be thirty feet deep on its south side. A walk round the fosse as it remains to-day reveals the fact that it is deeper on the south side, where the ground-level is higher than on the north; on the latter the ordinary level is 510 ft. O.D., while on the former it is 527 ft. This seems to point to the conclusion that a ditch was planned with a level bottom irrespective of the original level of the ground at any one point, and that the Ditch was not therefore made the same depth all round. The enormous labour of digging this huge trench 30 ft. deep, over 40 ft. wide at top, and 17 ft. at the bottom was incurred for some definite object. Ordinarily the theory of a prehistoric ditch is that it was to keep out man or animals; in this case 10 ft. of depth with fairly steep sides would be impassable for either; therefore to accdunt for the extraordinary exertion of going down 20 ft. deeper than necessary we must adopt another hypothesis, and the fact that the ditch is now deeper on the south, where the ground is highest, gives a clue to the problem.

Among a large number of comparatively unimportant Scottish documents purchased recently from a dealer at Hove was found one folio sheet of considerable interest on account of its connexion with the saving of the Regalia of Scotland in 1652. It is the original draft of the conditions of surrender of the Castle of Dunnottar by Captain George Ogilvy of Barras to the Parliamentary troops commanded by Colonel Thomas Morgan.

It has long been accepted that the site of the church of the Austin Canons of Merton was irretrievably lost, or at least irrecoverable by reason of the railway which runs across the enclosed precinct of the priory. Such portions of the other priory buildings which remain above the ground have been adequately described by our Fellow Mr. P. M. Johnston in the Surrey Archaeological Collections, vol. xxvii. These are somewhat remote, and, indeed, on the other side of the river Wandle from the site the investigation of which is presently to be described.

In January 814 Charlemagne died at Aix-la-Chapelle and was there buried on the same day. The event was of staggering importance. The Roman Empire of the West, which the barbarians had overthrown, was remembered even by them as the greatest thing in the world. Theodoric had tried to revive it and failed. It had lain dormant for more than three hundred years and then Charlemagne had apparently succeeded in reviving it, and had signalized the year 800 by being crowned Emperor by the Pope in the church of St. Peter at Rome.

The discoveries at the Grange were made below the tennis-court in a garden that slopes down to the Hitchin road and the river Mimram; and when the terrace at the top of the slope was under construction some thirty years ago, some Roman relics came to light and are now in the Hertford museum. Immediately opposite, on the other bank of the river, are the foundations of a Roman villa in the garden of the Manor House.

Among some old family deeds in my possession is a quitclaim by Robert Fitz Meldred to Henry Spring of four marks of silver being the annual rent of the town of ‘Hoctun’, probably Houghton le Spring in the bishopric of Durham. The date is about 1230. Attached to the deed is the seal in white wax of Robert Fitz Meldred (fig. 1). The seal is circular, and when perfect was about 2½ in. in diameter ; it bears a saltire which it will be noticed is very narrow, and the legend, now partly broken away, that originally read

The exact date of the matrix of a seal such as this cannot, of course, be given with certainty, but I venture to think it may be placed before the year 1200. Although Sir William St. John Hope in his paper on the Seals of English Bishops gives useful approximate dates for the various kinds of lettering, his remarks relate to episcopal seals only, and he guards himself against necessarily applying them to other classes. The lettering of the seal now under discussion is rough and of an earlier type than the ordinary Lombardic which is met with in the thirteenth century; we may perhaps place it between the Roman capitals which ceased about the last quarter of the twelfth century and the Lombardic capitals.