Fig. 259.
The series of engravings (Figs. [232 to 244]) will show the general and more characteristic forms of purely Anglo-Saxon cinerary urns. Figs. [232] and [235] are of the low or flat variety, which is of not unfrequent occurrence. Figs. [234] and [236] are also of a not uncommon form, while [240] is more uncommon. Fig. [241] is of excellent form, and is very simple in ornamentation, having only encircling and diagonal lines, to decorate its surface. Figs. [243, 244, and 239] are of different shape, and so again are Figs. [237 and 240], which are almost unique in form and in ornamentation.
Fig. 260.
Fig. 261.
Most of these examples are from one locality, King’s Newton, in Derbyshire, within a few miles of the capital of the kingdom of Mercia. The others (Fig. [232]) are from Kingston, in the same neighbourhood. Other characteristic examples of form and decoration are given on Figs. [233] and [234]. These are from the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and from the Norwich Museum, and exhibit excellent specimens of forms and decoration from those districts.
The ornamentation on Anglo-Saxon cinerary urns consists usually of encircling lines in bands, or otherwise; in vertical or zig-zag lines, arranged in a variety of ways; of impressed or punctured ornaments; and of knobs or protuberances. Sometimes also, as in a Bedfordshire urn, they present evident attempts at imitation of the Roman egg-and-tongue ornament. In some districts small ornaments are painted on the surface with a white pigment. The marked feature of the pottery of this period is the frequency of the small punctured or impressed ornaments to which I have alluded, which are introduced along with the lines or bands, with very good effect. These ornaments were evidently usually produced by the end of a stick, cut and notched across in different directions, so as to produce crosses and other patterns. In other instances these impressed ornaments have been produced by twisted slips of metal, &c.
In the woodcut (Figs. [260] and [261]) I have endeavoured to show two of the notched-stick “punches,” such as I have reason to believe were used for pressing into the soft clay, and also the impressed patterns produced by them.
The quatrefoils (or as they may almost be called, crosses patée) on some of the urns I have engraved, particularly on Figs. [237, 238, and 239], are very unusual, as are also those in the lower bands of Figs. [237 and 240], and in the upper band of the latter example.