No. XXV.—A child’s grave; disturbed. Only a bronze
buckle.
No. XXVI.—Eight feet long, three feet three inches deep, two feet six
inches wide. An umbo lay near the skull, and to its left a spear-head, the
ferule of which was at the feet. On the breast a fine buckle brightly
plated, and what appears to be the mounting of a purse. On the left side
some iron keys and an iron lock, with a bronze plate containing a hole for
its bolt; a small bronze balance and scales, with nineteen weights (Plate
IV.), lay at the left foot. The grave contained, too, a knife or dirk,
coupled with a smaller knife in one double sheath of wood; a circular iron
plate, a knife, and a pair of shears.
These are some of the most interesting and at the same time of the most
strangely assorted relics ever found in an Anglo-Saxon grave.
1. The balance and scales are quite perfect, and beautiful
specimens. The beam is about five inches
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long, and is slightly
chased; the end of the thread or silk which suspended the scales still
adheres to its ends, and some more was at first adhering to the sca1es
themselves ; these are an inch and seven-eighths in diameter. Another
such pair was lately found at Ozingell, with weights and coins;1
and another, much mutilated, with eighteen weights, or coins adapted as
weights, was taken from a grave at Gilton by Bryan Faussett, more than a
century ago. It is possible, as a fragment like the mounting of a purse
was found near, that some of our nineteen weights may have been money;
most of them, however, are either dotted in various ways, as if to
indicate some multiple of weight, or are ground and squared; and out of
nine which are distinctly Roman coins five at least have been thus
adapted as weights. They vary in weight from 8 grains to 1063 grains. A
weight of 248 grains
1.‘Collectanea Antiqua,’ vol. iii. plate
iv.
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