No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
A Decorated Iron Age Bridle-bit in the London Museum: its place in Art and Archaeology
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 May 2014
Extract
That the London Museum possesses one fine Iron Age bridle-bit has been known since the publication in the 1939 Proceedings of that from Walthamstow, Essex. It is the purpose of this paper to draw attention to another in the same collection.
The second bit was found in 1897 in the Thames at Old Windsor, Berkshire, and was acquired by Mr William H. Lloyd, Jnr., of St. Margaret's. In 1908, with the rest of his collection, it passed to Richmond Public Library, and in 1949 the Lloyd Collection was transferred by Richmond Borough Council on permanent loan to the London Museum.
The bit (pl. XXIV, 1), cast in bronze throughout, consists of a central figure-of-eight link with a pronounced central moulding, flanked by two side-links and two side-rings. The side-rings are cast solid in one piece with the link-heads. Each side-ring has two emplacements for ornamental studs, now missing, one on either side of the link-head: each stud was originally secured by small bronze pins, one of which (pl. XXIV, 2) remains. The holes for the pins perforate the thickness of the left-hand ring (pl. XXV, 2): in the right-hand ring, however, the holes stop halfway through. Each link-head also has a stud-emplacement, now empty. On the right-hand link, the stud was fixed by a pin, now lost, similar to those used in the side-rings: the left-hand one was attached by a square-headed bronze pin, still present. The right-hand link-head is further enriched with a curvilinear motif executed partly in cast relief, partly incised, while the other has incised enrichment only.
The bit is 10.6 inches (270 millimetres) long, the distance between the rings being 4.8 inches (122 millimetres). The side-links are 2.6 inches (68 millimetres) long, and 0.9 inch (24 millimetres) in greatest width. The centre-link is 2.4 inches (62 millimetres) long, the diameter of its central moulding 0.8 inch (21 millimetres). The side-rings are not true circles, their greatest and least diameters being 3.1 inches (80 millimetres) and 2.9 inches (73 millimetres) respectively: the rings measure 0.3 inch (8 millimetres) in section.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1963
References
page 206 note 1 The bit is registered as London Museum No. 49/107.880. We have to thank the Director Dr D. B. Harden for readily granting permission to publish, and the Museum's Senior Technician, Mr Arthur Trottman for so expertly cleaning and photographing the bit. Sir Cyril Fox, Mr E. M. Jope and Mr I. M. Stead have helped with many stages of our enquiry.
page 207 note 1 Perkins, J. B. Ward in PPS, V (1939), pp. 175–92Google Scholar, is still the basic source for the British bits with the few additions noted below and with the exception of Ireland, for which see Jope, E. M. in UJA, vol. 13 (1950), pp. 57–60Google Scholar and vol. 18 (1955), pp. 37–44.
page 207 note 2 Greenwell, W. in Archaeologia, LX (1906), pp. 251–312CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
page 207 note 3 Thus Hawkes, C. F. C. in Antiquity, XXXIII (1959), p. 181, fig. 2Google Scholar.
page 207 note 4 A Find of the Early Iron Age from Llyn Cerrig Bach (1946), pp. 27–34Google Scholar.
paeg 207 note 5 Clarke, R. R. in PPS, XVII (1951), pp. 214–25Google Scholar.
page 207 note 6 e.g. Jope, E. M. in UJA, vol. 18 (1955), pp. 41–2Google Scholar. His remark on separately inserted studs on the bronze bits being an unnecessary borrowing from cast iron prototypes does not of course prove that all bronze bits are therefore late, and certainly not that from Old Windsor!
page 207 note 7 Fox, op. cit., p. 82.
paeg 208 note 1 Sheppard, T. in YAJ, XIX (1907), p. 482Google Scholar; the critical statement is at pp. 485–6.
page 208 note 2 Some support is offered for this statement by Greenwell op. cit., pp. 311–12.
page 208 note 3 Fox, op. cit., p. 80.
page 208 note 4 Compare Ward Perkins op. cit., p. 179 and Stead, I. M. in Antiquity, XXXIII (1959), pp. 215–16Google Scholar.
page 208 note 5 Thus Mr I. M. Stead in litt. Compare here the Pexton bit, ibid.op. cit., fig. 2. For the ensuing argument it should be made clear that this bit is not closely related to those in the Arras graves, but has a different continental prototype seen in Champagne examples such as at La Fère-en-Tardenois. See Déchelette, J., Manuel d'Archéologie …, iv (2nd edtn., 1927), p. 544Google Scholar.
page 208 note 6 Fox's inventory of grave goods is somewhat amiss here: Pattern and Purpose (1958), p. 7Google Scholar; see rather Ward. Perkins op. cit., p. 179.
page 208 note 7 La Gorge-Meillet: Ward Perkins op. cit., p. 179; Sept-Saulx: Déchelette op. cit., pp. 707–8 and fig. 513.
page 208 note 8 Fox op. cit., pp. 37 and 80 (harness-loop); pp. 35 and 79 (terret). It is only honest to add that there is a parallel ring in the Honley hoard deposited c. A.D. 74: see Petch, J. A., Early Man in the District of Huddersfield (1924), pp. 79–84Google Scholar. We offer our thanks to Mr I. M. Stead for this reference.
paeg 208 note 9 The suggestion is Mr Stead's; compare Fox op. cit., pp. 105 and 120.
page 208 note 10 Stead op. cit., p. 215.
page 208 note 11 Dismantling was of course well established in Hallstatt times: q.v. for Joffroy, France R., Les Sépultures à char du premier Age du Fer in France (1958), here especially pp. 151–6Google Scholar; for the Low Countries and Switzerland see note 2, p. 210.
page 209 note 1 Fox op. cit., pp. 30–1.
page 209 note 2 For detailed knowledge of the Hunmanby bit we are grateful to Mr John Bartlett, Director, Municipal Museums, Kingston-upon-Hull, who most kindly supplied us with new photographs of the surviving items from the grave as well as a full scale drawing of the bit itself.
page 209 note 3 We owe this information and much practical insight into the whole question of the use of bridle-bits to Misses M. and J. Peter. Compare Fox's figure of 3 feet 10 inches (11½ hands) for the Llyn Cerrig ponies: Llyn Cerrig Bach, pp. 25 and 97.
page 209 note 4 Jope, E. M. in History of Technology, 11 (1956), p. 558Google Scholar.
page 209 note 5 q.v. Jope, E. M. in UJA, vol. 18 (1955), p. 42Google Scholar; the London bit referred to is illustrated in Brailsford, J. W., Later Prehistoric Antiquities of the British Isles (1953), pl. xGoogle Scholar: 4 and Fox op. cit., p. 125 and pl. 71, d.
page 210 note 1 For the later Irish background O'Rahilly, T. F., Early Irish History and Mythology (1946), pp. 290–307Google Scholar; for a rare allusion to chariots, pp. 519–22; for races and chariot horses see Rees, A. and Rees, B., Celtic Heritage (1961), pp. 63, 170–1, 231, 248 and 374Google Scholar.
page 210 note 2 Compare the token deposits in such Low Countries burials as Oss and Wijchen; De Laet, S. J. and Glasbergen, W., De Voorgeschiedenis der Laage Landen (1959), pp. 162–3Google Scholar, with the full burials of central Europe; Drack, W. in Zeitschrift für Schweiz. Archäologie und Kunstgeschichte, vol. 18: 1/2 (1958), pp. 1–67Google Scholar.
page 210 note 3 Brailsford, op. cit., p. 60 and pl. X: 3.
page 210 note 4 Kendrick, T. D. and Hawkes, C. F. C., Archaeology in England and Wales, 1914–31 (1932), pp. 190–1 and pl. xviii: 2Google Scholar.
page 210 note 5 Anderson, J., Scotland in Pagan Times: The Iron Age (1883), pp. 124–5Google Scholar and fig. 101; see also here footnote 8, p. 213.
page 210 note 6 Bruce, J. Collingwood, A Descriptive Catalogue of Antiquities, chiefly British, at Alnwick Castle (1880), p. 88 and fig. 5Google Scholar; compare MacGregor, , PPS, XXVIII (1962), pp. 17–57Google Scholar.
page 210 note 7 Mr Peter Lasko has remarked on this point previously: q.v. Jope, E. M. in UJA, vol. 18 (1955) p. 42Google Scholar. See here also footnote 8, below.
page 210 note 8 That this theory is not mere fantasy can be seen by quoting the miniature single link bit from Willingham, Cambs., which measures a mere 2.75 inches in length although the side-links do in fact swivel; cf. Ant. J., VI (1926), pl. XXXIII, fig. 2Google Scholar.
page 210 note 9 Brailsford, op. cit., p. 60.
page 210 note 10 It is here that Jope's remark as to the Ist-century A.D. date for the casting of the side-links with the rings applies: op. cit., p. 41.
page 211 note 1 Clarke, op. cit.
page 211 note 2 Mayer Collection, Liverpool; q.v. E. T. Leeds in Ant. J., XIII (1935), pp. 466–8Google Scholar.
page 211 note 3 Fox, op. cit., pp. 35–6.
page 211 note 4 q.v. King, E. in Archaeologia, XVI (1812), pp. 348–9 and pl. 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
page 211 note 5 Cunnington, M. E. and Goddard, E. H., Devizes Museum Catalogue II (1934), p. 194, no. 458 and pl. lxiiGoogle Scholar: 5.
paeg 211 note 6 It is demonstrated for example by Fox, op. cit., figs. 14 and 16.
page 211 note 7 London Museum No. O 1761 ex Layton Collection; from Strand Hill, a shoal opposite Strand-on-the-Green, Mddx.; discovered 1864. It is hardly necessary to point out how much of our Celtic fine metal work comes from either rivers (compare for the continent Port: Wyss, R. in Antiquity, XXX (1956), pp. 27–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar) or lake and marsh deposits—Llyn Cerrig Bach itself as compared with Gundestrup or even La Tène. But why particularly the Thames?
page 211 note 8 Fox, op. cit., pp. 147–50.
page 211 note 9 e.g. de Navarro, J. M. in PPS, XXI (1955), pp. 234–5Google Scholar and his detailed study in BR-GK, XL (1959), pp. 79–119; for the isolation of this feature compare the bird version of the nomadic shoulder curl on the horse of a Siberian cast gold belt buckle in the State Hermitage, Leningrad: Rice, T. Talbot, The Scythians (1957), pl. 2Google Scholar.
paeg 211 note 10 Witham: the ‘birds’ on the patera-like terminal bosses, Fox, op. cit., Frontispiece, for the best published photographs. Keshcarrigan: Jope, E. M. in UJA, vol. 17 (1954), pp. 92–6 and pl. viiiGoogle Scholar, a–in all probability a ist-century A.D. piece.
page 211 note 11 Where no other reference is quoted for British pieces Fox's Pattern and Purpose is to be taken as the point of departure, although with regard to Nijmegen recent study by one of us (J.V.S.M.) during the mirror's restoration at the British Museum and on its return to the Netherlands would indicate that it is high time that a full description with adequate illustrations of this piece should be published.
page 212 note 1 Fox, op. cit., pp. 9–12 for dating and fig. 56, c.
page 212 note 2 Jope, op. cit., pp. 85–6 and in ‘Problems of the Iron Age …’, Inst. Arch. Univ. London Occ. Paper, No. 11, P. 77.
page 212 note 3 With Aylesford-like bird's heads! Jacobsthal, P., Early Celtic Art (1944)Google Scholar, no. 129. Mr Jope pointed out this analogy to us.
page 212 note 4 Ward Perkins, op. cit., fig. 3.
page 212 note 5 e.g. Ringstead bit No. 2, side-link, inner side; v. Clarke, op. cit., p. 217 and fig. 4.
page 212 note 6 To start it off v. Stevenson, R. B. K. in JRSAI, LXXXVI: I (1956), pp. 84–96Google Scholar.
page 213 note 1 Jope, in ‘Problems of the Iron Age …’, Inst. Arch. Univ. London Occ. Paper, No. 11, p. 79Google Scholar.
page 213 note 2 Piggott, Stuart: in PPS, XVI (1950), pp. 12–14Google Scholar.
page 213 note 3 Piggott, op. cit., pp. 6–9 and figs. 3–4; de Navarro loc. cit.
page 213 note 4 Stead, op. cit., pp. 208–13.
page 213 note 5 Jope, in UJA, vol. 17 (1954), pp. 84–6 and pl. viiGoogle Scholar.
page 213 note 6 Atkinson, R. J. C. and Piggott, Stuart in Archaeologia, XCVI (1955), pp. 219–22 and fig. 4Google Scholar.
page 213 note 7 Ward Perkins, op. cit., pp. 181–2; compare Llyn Cerrig Bach No. 51; Fox, op. cit., p. 32.
page 213 note 8 Compare here Henry, F. in Préhistoire, II (1933), p. 100Google Scholar and no. 2 (Birrenswark).
page 213 note 9 in litt.
page 213 noet 10 The inlaid ‘eye’ must have added to the effect even more than the unrelated setting holes of the plaque.
page 213 note 11 Jope in ‘Problems of the Iron Age …’, Inst. Arch. Univ. London Occ. Paper, No. II, pp. 82–3.
page 213 note 12 Fox, op. cit., pp. 32–48, 145.