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XVI.—On some Roman Bronze Vessels discovered on the Castle Howard Estate, Yorkshire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2012

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The five bronze vessels, now exhibited by the kind permission of Vice-Admiral The Honourable Edward Howard, were first recovered in June, 1856, from the spot where they had lain buried probably since the time of the Roman occupation of Britain. A party of drainers, digging immediately behind a farmhouse on Stittenham Hill, belonging to the Castle Howard estate in Yorkshire, came upon these vessels at about three feet below the surface, placed one within another, in a nest or group. The soil, I understand, is boggy, and the metal accordingly has preserved the smooth unpatinated face and brownish hue common with ancient bronzes found in wet localities. The form of all the vessels is the same, and approximates to that of a modern saucepan; but the bowl of each, instead of having vertical sides and a broad fiat bottom, is curved inwards as it descends, like a cup, and the base is ornamented externally with raised concentric rings. Each handle, which is shaped in simple but not ungraceful curves, has a hole for suspending the vessel from a hook or peg. Round the bowl of the largest vessel runs a narrow engraved border of peculiar pattern.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1868

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References

page 326 note a Gruter, dcccclvii. 13.

page 326 note b Mommsen, Inscr. Regn. Neap. 2559, 2890, 6769, iii.

page 326 note c In the annexed Plate the engraver has given to this letter too decidedly the form of the ordinary Y. It consists in the original bronze of certainly not more than two strokes, the upright line, which runs unbroken up to the top, and (perhaps) an oblique bar on the right; but this has no correspondent on the left. The letter may be compared to a K, in which the lower limb on the right has been omitted

page 327 note a Gruter, ccxl. col. 3.

page 327 note b Archæologia, xi. 105.

page 327 note c Ibid, xxviii. p. 436, pl. xxv.

page 327 note d Bell. Gall. ii. 23.

page 327 note e This affinity has not escaped the notice of Mr. Evans; vide Coins of the Ancient Britons, p. 139.

page 327 note f Archæologia, xxxix. 509.

page 327 note g L'Antiq. Expl. tom. iii. p. 1, 1. 3, c. 12, pl. lxiv.

page 328 note a Published in Arneth's Gold-und-Silber Monumente, No. 92.

page 328 note b Arch. Journal, viii 35.

page 328 note c Vide Cat. Gen. des Camées, &c. de la Bibl. Imp. pp. 452–4, No. 2832–9. Cf. M. Le Prévost's Notice of the collection in the Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de Normandie, torn. vi. p. 75.

page 328 note d Archæologia, xv. 393, pl. xxx.—xxxiii.

page 328 note e There is one peculiarity in the Northumbrian vessel which I have not seen in any other example. On the bottom, close to the edge, are the marks of three small feet, intended, apparently, to raise the vessel slightly from the table or other surface on which it might have stood.

page 329 note a Vide Museo Borbonico, vol. v. tav. lviii.

page 329 note b Deipnosophistre, x. vii.

page 330 note a Od. III. viii. 13.

page 330 note b Vide Archæol, xxxix. 509.

page 330 note c “Quo sumebant minutatim, a sumendo Simpulum nominavere. In hujusce locum in conviviis è Græciâ successit Epichysis et Cyathus; in sacrificiis remansit Guttus et Simpulum.”—De Ling. Lat. v. 124 (ed. Müller).

page 330 note d “Simpulum vas parvulum non dissimile cyatho, quo vinum in sacrificiis libabatur; unde et mulieres rebus divinis deditæ Simpulatrices.”—De Verb. Sign, sub voce.

page 331 note a Engraved in Gargiulo's Recueil des Monuments du Mus. Royal Bourbon, vol iv.

page 331 note b Mus. Borb. iv tav. xii. fig. 5, 7, 8.

page 331 note c Od. I. xxix. 7.

page 331 note d Vide Cohen, Monn. de l'Emp. Rom. vol. i. pl. xi. (Nero, No. 55); vol. ii. pl. xv. (M. Aurelius, No. 587); vol. iii. pl. x. (Caracalla, No. 384). Montfaucon has collected several of such coins, vol. ii. p. 1, b. iii. c. iii. pl. liii.

page 332 note a Jahrbücher des Vereins von Alterthumsfreunden im Rheinlande. Heft xxxviii. p. 47, Taf. 1.