scholarly journals IV.—Hoards of Neolithic Celts

Archaeologia ◽  
1921 ◽  
Vol 71 ◽  
pp. 113-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reginald A. Smith
Keyword(s):  
British Museum ◽  
Present Series ◽  
Neolithic Period ◽  
Royal Irish Academy ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Private Collections

More than anywhere else in Europe the Neolithic Period has been studied in Scandinavia, where finds are exceptionally rich, and circumstances have made a sequence possible. Isolated attempts have been made to formulate an evolution series in France (Déchelette, Manuel, i, 514-16; L'Homme préhistorique, 1907, p. 71) and Germany (Prähistorische Zeitschrift, vi (1914), p. 29), but the material is not so abundant, and association of types in hoards or burials not frequent enough to complete the undertaking. Our Fellow Mr. E. C. R. Armstrong has described some associated finds of Irish neolithic celts in Proc. Royal Irish Academy, xxxiv, c, no. 6, but attention in England has been rather distracted by the abundance of Drift implements, and there has been a tendency to class all surface finds as neolithic, internal evidence alone being deemed insufficient to justify a chronological arrangement. Groups of contemporary specimens buried as hoards or deposited with the dead in any kind of grave have been provokingly rare; and an offer made by Mr. Algernon A. Hankey to exhibit a hoard of celts to the Society and subsequently to present them to the British Museum was therefore accepted with enthusiasm. Opportunity was taken to borrow from Mr. Russell J. Colman, who readily acceded to the request, another hoard of five celts found near Norwich; and since the paper was read, the Earl of Leicester kindly lent the President a group of four, also from Norfolk, for examination and inclusion in the present series, to which the Curator of Norwich Castle Museum has also contributed, through Miss G. V. Barnard, outlines of two other hoards from the same county. There are probably other datable groups in public or private collections, but it would be futile to delay publication of those above mentioned till a thorough search of all the literature and museums in the kingdom had been undertaken. These will at least form the basis of a chronological scheme for neolithic celts, the value of which can be estimated by the ease or difficulty of incorporating other groups that may come to light.

A gold diadem from Aegina

1987 ◽  
Vol 107 ◽  
pp. 182-182
Author(s):  
Reynold Higgins
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
British Museum ◽  
The South ◽  
North West ◽  
The North ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Middle Helladic ◽  
Dead Man ◽  
The Bronze Age ◽  
Grave Goods

A recent discovery on the island of Aegina by Professor H. Walter (University of Salzburg) throws a new light on the origins of the so-called Aegina Treasure in the British Museum.In 1982 the Austrians were excavating the Bronze Age settlement on Cape Kolonna, to the north-west of Aegina town. Immediately to the east of the ruined Temple of Apollo, and close to the South Gate of the prehistoric Lower Town, they found an unrobbed shaft grave containing the burial of a warrior. The gravegoods (now exhibited in the splendid new Museum on the Kolonna site) included a bronze sword with a gold and ivory hilt, three bronze daggers, one with gold fittings, a bronze spear-head, arrowheads of obsidian, boar's tusks from a helmet, and fragments of a gold diadem (plate Va). The grave also contained Middle Minoan, Middle Cycladic, and Middle Helladic (Mattpainted) pottery. The pottery and the location of the grave in association with the ‘Ninth City’ combine to give a date for the burial of about 1700 BC; and the richness of the grave-goods would suggest that the dead man was a king.

II.—The Kells Crosier

Archaeologia ◽  
1955 ◽  
Vol 96 ◽  
pp. 59-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Máire Mac Dermott
Keyword(s):  
British Museum ◽  
First Record ◽  
Museum Collection ◽  
Modern History ◽  
Royal Irish Academy ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
History Of

In the year 1850, Cardinal Wiseman writing to Dr. Russell of Maynooth mentions an ancient crosier which had come into his possession. This is the first record of the shrine known variously as the Kells crosier or the crosier of Cúduilig and Maelfinnén, which now forms one of the most beautiful and most treasured exhibits in the British Museum collection of Irish Early Christian antiquities. In his letter the cardinal describes how he had acquired this ‘most valuable relic’ at the auction of the belongings of a solicitor in London, the crosier evidently having been left in the chambers by a previous occupant, and asks for help in deciphering the inscription. Nothing whatever is known of the earlier history of the crosier or of when it was removed from Ireland. At the request of Dr. Russell, Petrie exhibited the crosier at a meeting of the Royal Irish Academy on 14th February 1851, and read a paper on it. The shrine was at the time deposited on loan in the Academy museum. The next step in the modern history of the Kells crosier was its acquisition by the British Museum in 1859.

XXXVI: Is the O’Neill — MacCarthy letter of 1317 a forgery?

1982 ◽  
Vol 23 (89) ◽  
pp. 61-67
Author(s):  
Diarmuid Ó Murchadha
Keyword(s):  
British Museum ◽  
Personal Communication ◽  
Royal Irish Academy ◽  
Public Records ◽  
The Public

In June 1926 Herbert Wood, deputy-keeper of the public records of Ireland, read a paper to the Royal Irish Academy under the title ‘Letter from Domnall O’Neill to Fineen MacCarthy, 1317’, based on a manuscript (Add. MS 34727, ff 268–9) in the British Museum. The paper was published shortly afterwards as an interesting — perhaps unique — example of a personal communication from one Gaelic lord to another in the era of the Bruce wars. Wood, who obviously had some doubts concerning it, debated in his final paragraphs the case for and against the possibility of forgery before accepting the letter as genuine. But despite the singularity of the letter and the circumstances of its provenance through one person — Thomas O’Sullivan of Middle Temple, London — it has been unquestioningly accepted by historians both general and specialist.Since 1926 several contemporary and near-contemporary sources of early MacCarthy history have been published, providing evidence which was not readily accessible in Wood’s time. In the light of sources such as these, the authenticity of the letter deserves to be reassessed, and the purpose of this article is to show that the whole document could well have been a fabrication concocted by O’Sullivan.

A Chemical Study of Some Native Arsenates and Phosphates

1895 ◽  
Vol 11 (49) ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. H. Church
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Chemical Study ◽  
Chemical Society ◽  
Present Series ◽  
Royal Irish Academy

The present series of notes is mainly based upon analyses executed during the years 1867-1877. but these have been supplemented in a few instances by recent work. The series may be regarded as a continuation of several papers published from time to time in the Journal of the Chemical Society, in the Chemical News, and in the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. Throughout these inquiries particular attention has been paid to the degree of tenacity with which the water present in the hydrous species is held.

Observations on Roman Pottery from Pudding Pan and the Thames Estuary and Early Surveys

Britannia ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 46 ◽  
pp. 15-36
Author(s):  
Mark Redknap
Keyword(s):  
British Museum ◽  
Research Partnership ◽  
Roman Archaeology ◽  
Thames Estuary ◽  
South East England ◽  
Private Collections

AbstractPreviously unpublished Roman pottery from the Thames Estuary was studied by the author in 1985 and 1986 for the voluntary body Marine Archaeological Surveys (MAS) and is presented as a contribution to wider initiatives on the Roman archaeology of this important social and economic artery between South-East England and the wider world. The purpose of this paper is to complement the ongoing review by Michael Walsh of Roman wrecks in UK waters (a research partnership between Southampton University and the British Museum) and that of the ‘Pudding Pan’ assemblage, much of which is in private collections.

Additional observations on the osteology of the iguanodon and hylæosaurus

1851 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 804-806
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Vertebral Column ◽  
Spinal Column ◽  
British Museum ◽  
Previous Knowledge ◽  
The South ◽  
Isle Of Wight ◽  
Fossil Remains ◽  
Private Collections

This memoir is supplementary to the author’s former communications to the Royal Society on the same subject, and comprises an account of some important additions which he has lately made to our previous knowledge of the osteological structure of the colossal reptiles of the Wealden of the South-east of England. The acquisition of some gigantic and well-preserved vertebræ and bones of the extremities from the Isle of Wight, and of other instructive specimens from Sussex and Surrey, induced the author to resume his examination of the detached parts of the skeletons of the Wealden reptiles in the British Museum, and in several private collections; and he states as the most important result of his investigations, the determination of the structure of the vertebral column, pectoral arch, and anterior extremities of the Iguanodon. In the laborious and difficult task of examining and comparing the numerous detached, and for the most part mutilated bones of the spinal column, Dr. Mantell expresses his deep obligation to Dr. G. A. Melville, whose elaborate and accurate anatomical description of the vertebræ is appended to the memoir. The most interesting fossil remains are described in detail in the following order.

Note on the Hallstatt Period in Ireland

1922 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 204-207
Author(s):  
E. C. R. Armstrong
Keyword(s):  
British Museum ◽  
Royal Irish Academy ◽  
Hallstatt Period

On page 86 of the 2nd edition (1912) of the late J. R. Allen's Celtic Art is the statement, ‘Of the smaller Hallstatt sword with an iron blade and a bronze handle, having antennae-like projections at the top, one specimen from the Thames is to be seen in the British Museum, and there are about half a dozen others in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin.’ Déchelette (Manuel, ii, 2nd part, page 737 and note 3) repeated this on Allen's authority. But no swords of this type have, I believe, been discovered in Ireland. As no examples have been exhibited with the Academy's collection it is difficult to account for the mistake.

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