A pin of the same general form, but without any loop and with a more ornamental head, also from Ireland, is shown in Fig. 458, and an English example, found near Cambridge, in Fig. 459.
One with a plain flat head, and 11¾ inches long, is figured by Wilde (Fig. 446).
Similar pins with flat heads have been found in the Lake-dwellings of Savoy and Switzerland.
The large flat heads are often highly ornamented.
The pin from Ireland, of which the head is shown in Fig. 460,[1437] one-third of the actual size, is 13½ inches long. This cut and Figs. 453, 462, 463, and 465, are kindly lent by the Royal Irish Academy.
The ornamental expanded heads, which usually have a conical projection in the centre, are more frequently turned over so as to be in the same plane as the pins and be visible when stuck into a garment. Fig. 461 is from a specimen of my own found in the North of Ireland.
Fig. 462, from Wilde,[1438] shows a small pin of the same kind, found at Keelogue Ford.
Occasionally the head seems disproportionately large to the pin.
That of which the highly ornamented head is shown in Fig. 463,[1439] is only 5½ inches long, while the head itself is 2¼ inches in diameter.
A grand pin of this kind from Ireland, with the head 4⅝ inches in diameter, and the pin 10¾ inches long, is in the British Museum. The face of the disc has five concentric circles upon it, with triangles, squares, and ring ornaments between them.