———— Fig. 282.—Garton. —————— Fig. 283.—Wilmslow.
Two others in solid bone from barrows at Garton[838] and Bishop Wilton, Yorkshire, have been figured by Dr. Thurnam. The former is here by permission reproduced. That from the well-known Gristhorpe tumulus,[839] near Scarborough, in which the body lay in the hollowed trunk of an oak-tree, is more neatly made, being of oval outline with a projecting bead round the base. It has holes for three pins.
Another pommel of an ornamental character was found with burnt bones in an urn at Wilmslow, Cheshire, and is engraved in the Journal of the British Archæological Association,[840] from which Fig. 283 is here reproduced. The receptacle is so small that the haft to which it was attached probably consisted of but a single piece of ox-horn or wood. It appears as if the mortise had been made by drilling three holes side by side.
A very remarkable and beautiful hilt of a sword or dagger, formed of amber of a rich red colour and inlaid with pins of gold, was found in a barrow on Hammeldon Down,[841] Devonshire. By the kindness of the Committee of the Plymouth Athenæum I am enabled to give two views and a section of this unique object in Fig. 284. Instead of a socket or mortise, there is in this instance a tenon, or projection, which entered into a mortise or hole in the handle. On each side of this tenon is a small mortise of the same length, and through the tenon have been drilled two small holes, one from each side, for pins to attach the pommel to the handle. A small part of the pommel which was broken off in old times seems to have been united to the main body by a series of minute gold rivets or clips, but this piece has again been severed, though the pins round the margin of the fracture remain. This pommel seems disproportionately large for the slightly fluted blade, of which a fragment was found in the same barrow.
Fig. 284.—Hammeldon Down. 1/1
A small object of amber, apparently the pommel of a diminutive dagger, was found in a barrow at Winterbourn Stoke,[842] Wilts. A small knife or scraper, mounted in a handle formed of two pieces of amber, secured by two rivets and bound with four strips of gold, is also preserved at Stourhead.[843] The blade is at the side like that of a hatchet.
Amber was used for inlaying some of the ivory hilts of iron swords at Hallstatt.
The bronze object shown full size in Fig. 285 may not improbably be the pommel of the hilt of a dagger or sword. The hole through the base is irregular in form, and may be accidental. It was found in the hoard at Reach Fen, Cambridge, in which were also the tip of a scabbard and some fragments of swords, as well as two large double-edged knives.