Fig. 482.
Fig. 483.
Of locks and keys, scales and weights, and many other articles, it will not be necessary to speak at further length than simply to note that they are sometimes found in Saxon graves. Bells—small hand-bells—too, are found in the graves of women. They are of bronze or iron, and of the rectangular form so characteristic of Saxon bells of larger size.
One of the most curious set of objects which the Saxon graves of Derbyshire have produced is a set of twenty-eight bone counters, or draughtmen, some of which are shown on the following engraving ([fig. 484]) where they are represented of their full size. They were found by Mr. Bateman in a barrow near Cold Eaton, along with an interment of burnt bones, some fragments of iron, and portions of two bone combs. The draughtmen, as they are supposed to be, and the combs, had been burnt with the body. The following is Mr. Bateman’s account of this curious discovery:—
“The barrow was about twenty yards across, with a central elevation of eighteen inches, and was entirely composed of earth. The original deposit was placed in a circular hole, eighteen inches in diameter, sunk about six inches in the stony surface of the land on which the barrow was raised, so that the entire depth from the top of the latter was two feet. The interment consisted of a quantity of calcined human bones, which lay upon a thin layer of earth at the bottom of the hole, as compactly as if they had at first been deposited within a shallow basket or similar perishable vessel. Upon them lay some fragments of iron, part of two bone combs, and twenty-eight convex objects of bone, like button-moulds.
“The pieces of iron have been attached to some article of perishable material; the largest fragment has a good-sized loop, as if for suspension. One of the combs has been much like the small-tooth comb used in our nurseries, and is ornamented by small annulets cut in the bone; the other is of more elaborate make, having teeth on each side as the former, but being strengthened by a rib up the middle of both sides, covered with a finely cut herring-bone pattern, and attached by iron rivets.
“The twenty-eight bone objects (of which nine are engraved on [fig. 484]) consist of flattened hemispherical pieces, mostly with dots on the convex side; in some, dots within annulets. They vary from half an inch to an inch in diameter, and have generally eight, nine, or ten dots each; but these are disposed so irregularly that it would be difficult to count them off-hand, which leads to the conclusion that these counters would not be employed for playing any game dependent upon numbers, like dominoes or dice, but that they were more probably used for a game analogous to draughts. This is most likely to be the fact, as draughtmen have occasionally been found in Scandinavian grave-mounds; and we must assign this interment to the Saxons, whose customs were in many respects identical. All the articles found in this barrow have undergone the process of combustion, along with the human remains.”
