I have an object from the Seine at Paris, which appears to belong to the same class as the tubes lately described, though without any loop. The tube is in this instance about 3 inches long, with small flanges at each end; and through the middle of it is an oval opening about 1 inch by ⅜ inch, with mouth-pieces standing out on each side of the tube, making the whole length of the oval cross-tube thus formed nearly 1¼ inch. Each mouth-piece has two parallel beads running round it. I am at a loss to assign a purpose to it.
Those with a loop seem to me possibly intended as clasps for leather straps or belts, one end of which passed through the metal loop and was sewn or fastened to the strap so as to form a loop of leather, while a corresponding loop at the other end was inserted into the oval mouth-piece, so that a pin passed down inside the tube would go through it and secure it. This pin need not have been of metal, but of some more perishable material.
The objection to this view is that the side orifice in the tube is not in all cases opposite to the loop, but in one instance at least at right angles to it. A second suggestion is that they were loops in some manner attached to wooden or leather scabbards of swords, which could at any time be detached by withdrawing a pin that passed down the tube. Whatever purpose they served, they do not appear to have been permanently attached to any other article, as in no instance have any rivet-holes been observed in them.
Some of the hollow rings found in Ireland with transverse perforations through them, appear also to have been made for attachment at will to leather or cloth by means of a pin passing through the cross-holes, which at once converted the rings into brooches or buckles of a peculiar kind.
This purpose has already been suggested by Mr. T. O’Gorman, in the Journal of the Royal Historical and Archæological Association of Ireland.[1552] He there describes a bronze pin with two thick bronze rings upon it, which was found with two large rings of bronze, four rings of about the same size as those on the pin, a large socketed celt, and a bronze hammer, in what appears to have been a sepulchre near Trillick, Co. Tyrone. These objects are now all in my own collection, and, as will be seen in Fig. 496, there can be no doubt of an efficient form of double buckle being presented by the pin and rings. Whether it was used for fastening a cloak or tunic, as suggested by Mr. O’Gorman, or for some other purpose, I need not stay to examine. I think, however, that the discovery of the pin and perforated rings in juxtaposition throws some light upon the character of other rings with cross perforations, of which many have been found in Ireland. One of these is shown in Fig. 497, borrowed from Wilde.[1553] I have one of precisely the same character, 2⅜ inches in diameter, with a cross perforation through the two projecting mouth-pieces, slightly oval, and about the size to receive a common pencil. Vallancey[1554] has figured others, in one of which there is a cross-pin with a small ring at each end, somewhat like a horse’s bit.[1555]
Fig. 497.
Ireland. ½
Others, with numerous small loops round the circumference, and with central bosses secured by pins, or occasionally with cross arms within them, appear to be of later date and to have had bands of chain-mail attached. In some of the plain rings, however, there is a portion of a strap of bronze left, which Sir W. Wilde regards as having served to connect the ring-chains, of which he thinks that coats of mail were made. Under any circumstances, these perforated rings seem to come under the category of fastenings or clasps, to which the looped tubes already described may also be referred.
A perforated ring was in the hoard found at Llangwyllog,[1556] Anglesea, already mentioned.
Large rings, such as those described in the last chapter, may also have served as connections for bands or straps.