A Summary Catalogue of the Continental Archaeological Collections (Roman Iron Age, Migration period, early medieval): Ashmolean Museum, Oxford 9780860548638, 9781407349855

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ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM OXFORD

A Summary Catalogue of the Continental Archaeological Collections (Roman Iron Age, Migration Period, Early Medieval)

Arthur MacGregor with Holly Flora, Mary Lloyd, Moira Hook and Lisbeth Roberts

BAR International Series 67 4 1997

Published in 2019 by BAR Publishing, Oxford BAR International Series 674 A Summary Catalogue of the Continental Archaeological Collections (Roman Iron Age, Migration Period, Early Medieval) © Ashmolean Museum and the Publisher 1997 The authors’ moral rights under the 1988 UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act are hereby expressly asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be copied, reproduced, stored, sold, distributed, scanned, saved in any form of digital format or transmitted in any form digitally, without the written permission of the Publisher. ISBN 9780860548638 paperback ISBN 9781407349855 e-book DOI https://doi.org/10.30861/9780860548638 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library This book is available at www.barpublishing.com BAR Publishing is the trading name of British Archaeological Reports (Oxford) Ltd. British Archaeological Reports was first incorporated in 1974 to publish the BAR Series, International and British. In 1992 Hadrian Books Ltd became part of the BAR group. This volume was originally published by Archaeopress in conjunction with British Archaeological Reports (Oxford) Ltd / Hadrian Books Ltd, the Series principal publisher, in 1997. This present volume is published by BAR Publishing, 2019.

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CONTENTS

1v

PREFACE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ABBREVIATIONS

1 19 21

THE COLLECTION: THE INVENTORY SCANDINAVIA

11 111

ITS FOUNDATION AND DEVELOPMENT, WITH NOTES ON BENEFACTORS AND FORMER OWNERS

INTRODUCTION(with topographical index), 1 BOX BROOCHES, 2 DISC BROOCHES , 3 ANIMAL-HEAD BROOCHES , 4 OVAL BROOCHES, 5 PENANNULAR BROOCHES, 6 ANNULAR BROOCHES, 7 'TOOL BROOCHES'(REDSKAPSPANNE), 8 PLATE BROOCHES, 9 TRUMPET BROOCH, 10 DISC-ON-BOW BROOCHES, 11 FOLDED-FOOT BROOCHES, 12 EQUAL-ARM BROOCH, 13 PENDANTS, 14 BRACTEATE PENDANTS, 15 BRACELETS, 16 FINGERRINGS, 7 GEMSTONE, 18 HEAD-DRESS RING, 19 APPLIQUES, 20 PINS, 21 NEEDLE-CASE, 22 BUCKLES, 23 STRAP-ENDS, 24 STRAP-DISTRIBUTOR, 25 OPENWORK DISC, 26 SCABBARD FITTINGS, 27 DISC, 28 SLIDE KEYS, 29 FIRE-STEEL, 30 CAPTIVE RING, 31 RUNE STONES, 32 POTTERY VESSELS

73

GERMANY INTRODUCTION (with topographical index) , 33 DISC BROOCHES, 34 CROSSBOW BROOCH, 35 RADIATE-HEADED BROOCHES , 36 BOW BROOCH (AUGENFIBEL), 37 CROSS BROOCH, 38 S-BROOCHES, 39 BIRD BROOCHES, 40 HORSE BROOCHES, 41 BRACTEATE PENDANTS, 42 PENDANTS, 43 GEMSTONE , 44 FINGER-RING, 45 PIN, 46 BUCKLES AND BELT-PLATES, 47 STRAP-ENDS, 48 STRAP- AND SCABBARD-FITTINGS, 49 OPENWORK DISCS, 50 BEADS AND WHORLS, 51 AMULETS, 52 COMB, 53 ESCUTCHEONS AND APPLIQUES , 54 SPEARHEAD, 55 GLASS VESSELS, 56 POTTERY VESSELS

111

FRANCE INTRODUCTION (with topographical index), 57 BUTTON BROOCH, 58 DISC BROOCHES, 59 PLATE BROOCHES, 60 TUTULUS BROOCH, 61 QUOIT BROOCH, 62 CROSSBOW BROOCH, 63 SUPPORTING-ARM BROOCH, 64 RECTANGULAR-HEADED BROOCHES, 65 RADIATE-HEADED BROOCHES, 66 ASYMMETRIC BROOCHES , 67 EQUAL-ARMED BROOCHES, 68 CROSS BROOCH, 69 S-BROOCHES, 70 BIRD BROOCHES, 71 HORSE AND DEER BROOCHES , 72 PENDANTS, 73 FINGER-RINGS, 74 EAR-RINGS, 75 PIN, 76 BUTTON , 77 BUCKLES AND BACK-PLATES , 78 BELT -FITTINGS, 79 SCABBARD AND SHEA TH FITTINGS, 80 OPENWORK DISCS AND PLATES, 81 BEADS AND WHORLS, 82 AMULETS, 83 COMB, 84 APPLIQUES, 85 POMMEL CAP , 86 KNIFE-HANDLE MOUNT, 87 SPEARHEAD , 88 AXE-HEADS, 89 FOLDING BALANCES, 90 GLASS VESSEL, 91 POTTERY VESSELS

201

BELGIUM INTRODUCTION (with topographical index), 92 BUCKLES AND BACK-PLATES

203

SPAIN INTRODUCTION (with topographical index), 93 RADIATE-HEADED BROOCHES, 94 BUCKLES , 95 EAR-RINGS, 96 BRACELETS

209

ITALY INTRODUCTION (with topographical index) , 97 DISC BROOCH, 98 PENANNULAR BROOCH, 99 RADIATE-HEADED BROOCHES, 100 ASYMMETRIC BROOCH, 101 HORSE BROOCH, 102 BRACELET, 103 FINGER-RING, 104 BUCKLES , 105 STRAP FITTINGS , 106 CRUCIFORM APPLIQUES, 107 SHIELD MOUNTS, 108 GLASS VESSEL

225

CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN EUROPE INTRODUCTION (with topographical index), 109 DISC BROOCH, 110 TRUMPET BROOCH , 111 CROSSBOW BROOCH , 112 PENDANTS , 113 BRACELETS, 114 BUCKLES , 115 STRAP-ENDS, 116 OPENWORK DISC

233

UKRAINE INTRODUCTION (with topographical index), 117 RAD IATE-HEADED BROOCHES , 118 PLATE BROOCH , 119 PENDANT,120 BEADS, NECKLACES AND AMULETS, 121 GLASS RING , 122 BUCKLES, 123 STRAP -FITTINGS , 124 APPLIQUE, 25 MOUNT, 126 ARROWHEAD, 127 POTTERY VESSELS

247

UNPROVENANCED INTRODUCTION, 128 DISC BROOCHES, 129 PLATE BROOCHES, 130 PENANNULAR BROOCH, 131 OVAL BROOCH, 132 RADIATE-HEADED BROOCH, 133 EQUAL-ARM BROOCH, 134 PENDANTS, 135 BRACELETS, 136 FINGER- RINGS , 137 EAR-RING, 138 BEADS, 139 GEMSTONE, 140 PINS, 141 BUCKLES, 142 STRAP-END, 143 BELT-FITTING , 144 NEEDLE , 145 STRIKE-A-LIGHT, 146 SWORD BLADE, 147 STIRRUP, 148 POTTERY VESSEL

267

APPENDIX:

ITEMS OF CONTINENTAL TYPE FOUND IN ENGLAND

INTRODUCTION, 149 FINGER-RING, 150 CICADA BROOCH

269 283 285

BIBLIOGRAPHY TYPOLOGICAL INDEX CORRELATION OF ACCESSION NUMBERS

PREFACE The bulk of the items catalogued here entered the Ashmolean through the collection of Sir John Evans. Doubtless they reflect an area of specific (though minor) interest on his part, for his published works include no accounts of artefacts of this kind. Other collectors, both earlier and later than Evans, have contributed smaller though significant amounts of material. Although most of these objects fall chronologically within the Migration Period, the earlier boundary of this work has been extended to include the small number of 'barbarian' finds from the Roman Iron Age that customarily have been kept with the Migration Period material and which, if excluded from the present exercise, might never have had their existence acknowledged in print. At the later end of the spectrum, the_Scandinavian collections in particular include a number of important Viking Age and early medieval objects which also demand inclusion here. Many of these items have not hitherto been published. In contrast to the companion catalogue of Anglo-Saxon material (MacGregor and Bolick 1993), no opportunity existed here for carrying out compositional analyses on the metals: all identifications are based on visual characteristics only. However, the fact that much of the material listed here is of high quality, having already passed through the filter of the collector's cabinet before it reached the Ashmolean, coupled with the fact that much of it is provenanced to site, makes the present publication a valid and worthwhile exercise. Having been amassed for the most part over a century ago (and in some cases as much as three centuries ago), the collection also has a distinct historical importance. While every effort has been made here to preserve as many details as possible of the collection history of the objects and to provide bibliographical references that should enable the reader to place these items in a wider archaeological context, no attempt has been made to classify them according to the often elaborate typologies erected by earlier researchers. These refinements are for the reader to pursue. Here the aim is merely to render the material accessible, so that the components of this historic collection can continue to play a valuable role in contemporary archaeological discourse. None the less, some brief notes are supplied by way of providing a context for the items described.

11

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS During three years of fitful attention to this catalogue I have relied on·a number of volunteer helpers to maintain some degree of momentum within the project. The four most closely associated at various times have been named as my co-authors, although they may recognize few of their own words in the text: Holly Flora found time to help over a period of several months while studying at Oxford; Moira Hook and Mary Lloyd, members of the Education Service of the Ashmolean, spent much time in compiling the analysis of the Evans collection summarized in Fig. 2 and in checking the final text; Lisbeth Roberts, also of the Education Service, was invaluable in helping with the preparation of the Scandinavian section, before marriage carried her off to Australia. Other short-term volunteers who have been pressed into service at various times include Hannah Borno, Sean Kalinski, Daisy Lange, Heather Smith, William Whiteley and Matthew Winterbottom. I have called upon the expertise of several friends and colleagues from outside the Museum who have been uniformly unfailing in providing advice and support. My first debt must be to Dafydd Kidd, who selflessly shared his knowledge, built up over years of research on the very much richer collections of the Department of Medieval and Later Antiquities in the British Museum. Both he and his colleague Barry Ager proved inexhaustible sources of wise counsel during four weeks I spent in their company in 1996 and intermittently before and since that time. Other colleagues in England who gave generously of their advice include Julia Andrasi, who commented on the Central and South-East European material; Charlotte Behr, who made significant improvements to my accounts of the bracteate pendants; David Buckton, who provided unpublished data from his forthcoming British Museum catalogue of Byzantine enamels; William Filmer-Sankey, who gave me access to his paper on a Lombardic gold ring in the Ashmolean collections, also in advance of publication; Brian Gilmour, who supplied observations on a pattern-welded sword fragment; Martin Henig, who advised on the Alsen-gems and who subsequently invited me to publish with him a joint note on them; Mark Norman for his observations on metals and manufacturing techniques; Monica Price, who cleared up uncertainties amongst the mineralogical identifications; Matthew Stiff, who commented on the glass; and Helen Whitehouse, who identified the Egyptian amulets. For other information I am grateful to Janet Ben, Nick Griffiths, Cathy Haith, Cathy King, Andreas Lapourtas, Jean Macdonald, Vera Magyar and Ljudmila Pekarska. The contributions of further colleagues with special knowledge of finds from particular Continental areas also deserve mention. In Sweden I benefited greatly from the guidance of Lena Thunmark-Nylen, whose close knowledge of the Gotlandic material was put at my disposal and significantly enhanced this section of the catalogue. Jan Peder Lamm and Inger Zachrisson of the Statens Historiska Museum and Anders Carlsson of the Department of Archaeology at the University of Stockholm provided further advice in this area, while the resources of the Gotlands Fornsal were kindly made available to me by Gun Westholm and Gunilla Hallin Lawergren during a brief visit in 1995. J~rgen Jensen of the Nationalmuseum in Copenhagen kindly made enquiries on my behalf about material exchanged between our two institutions in the 1920s. In Germany I was fortunate to make the acquaintance of Andreas Vogel at the Institut ftir Vor- und Friihgeschichte in Mainz, who shared with me his encyclopaedic knowledge of the finds from Andemach, which form the basis of his current doctoral thesis, and provided much useful comment on the objects from that site included in the present catalogue. From the same institution, Professors Hermann Ament and Ji.irgenOldenstein gave me a

iii

hospitable welcome in 1995 and Michaela Aufleger subsequently exchanged information with me on Merovingian buckles; Professor Ament also allowed me to reproduce the map of Andemach which appears below on p. 75. Dieter Quast of the Landesmuseum Baden Wtirttemberg also welcomed me to his institution and gave friendly advice on the whole range of German material. To Arent Pol of the Royal Coin Cabinet at the Rijksmuseum, Leiden, I am grateful for expert opinion on a coin-pendant of Frisian type which had gone unnoticed until recognized by him. For information on French finds I turned to Fran9oise Vallet at the Musee des Antiquites Nationales, who kindly gave me the benefit of her wide experience during a visit to SaintGermain-en-Laye and continued to be helpful by correspondence thereafter. Further insights into the French and German material were gained through conversation with Katharine Brown at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, who acquainted me with the Museum's Pierpont Morgan collection and exchanged several useful publications with me thereafter . In the production of the catalogue itself I have to thank a number of colleagues in the Ashmolean Museum . Nick Pollard of the photographic service took most of the photographs before injury caused him to relinquish the task to his colleagues Jane Inskipp and Anne Holly . The gems were photographed by Robert Wilkinson of the Institute of Archaeology at Oxford . Jonathan Moffet solved my many computer problems and himself compiled the graph reproduced in Fig. 2. The final layouts for the camera-ready copy were prepared on computer by Keith Bennett, the tireless illustrator in the Department of Antiquities, who also produced the maps: I am especially indebted to him for the care and skill he brought to the project, and to Julia Jarrett who handled all the final corrections. Julie Clements provided much administrative and secretarial back-up and many of my other colleagues uncomplainingly suffered inconvenience as a result of my preoccupation with this project. My thanks are due to all of them. Finally, it is a pleasure to acknowledge the generosity of the Marc Fitch Fund in providing the Museum with a loan to finance the costs involved in publication of this volume.

ABBREVIATIONS D H KVHAA L SHM Th

w

Diameter Height Kungelige Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien, Stockholm Length Statens Historiska Museum , Stockholm Thickness Width iv

THE COLLECTION ITS FOUNDATION AND DEVELOPMENT WITH NOTES ON BENEFACTORS AND ON FORMER OWNERS The bulk of the collection listed below can be attributed to the enterprise of a single collector, Sir John Evans (1823-1908) (Fig. 1). With extraordinarily sustained energy and commitment, Evans combined a lifetime in business (he married into the Dickinson paper-making family) and public service (acting as a Justice of the Peace and ultimately as High Sheriff of Hertfordshire) with a productive interest in archaeology and numismatics. The collections he formed in each of these areas were no less important than his many publications on these subjects; although lacking a university training, he published some ninety-seven papers on numismatic subjects between 1849 and the year of his death, in addition to some 125 papers on archaeological and geological subjects (see Forrer 1909 for details) and three books of major importance - Coins of the Ancient Britons (1864), Ancient Stone Implements (1872) and Ancient Bronze Implements (1881 ). At various times he served as president of the Geological Society, ·the Anthropological Institute, the Society of Antiquaries, the Numismatic Society and the Egypt Exploration Fund; furthermore, he held the treasurership of the Royal Society from 1878 to 1898 and the chairmanship of the Society of Arts in 1900. In recognition for these services, he was honoured with a KCB in 1892. He married three times and had three daughters and three sons of whom one, Arthur (later Sir Arthur) (1851-1941), was to play a significant part in the history of the archaeological collections reviewed here.

Fig. l . Sir John Evans, by John Collier , 1905. On loan to the Ashmolean from A.L. Evans , Esq . This oil portrait was painted when Sir John was in his eighty-third year.

THE COLLECTION

Sir John Evans's collection On the evidence of the dates associated with certain objects in the collection, Evans had already begun collecting by the time he was twenty. Migration Period material is indeed among the earliest acquisitions for which we have any record (see below and Fig. 2), and although it represents one of his lesser-known areas of interest the records show a sustained flow of objects into the collection over a large part of his adult life. It is none the less striking that a significant part of the Merovingian material from France, which constitutes the largest group of material in the present catalogue, comes from the very region of the Somme where he was drawn by his interest in the discoveries being made there which led to the establishment of the concept of the Palaeolithic, notably by Boucher de Perthes. (Evans contributed an important paper on these discoveries to the Society of Antiquaries (Evans 1860) in which he described his visits in the spring of 1859 to several of these sites, including Abbeville and Saint-Acheul which both produced items listed in the present catalogue). A feeling arises that his Migration Period acquisitions from towns in this area may initially have been incidental upon his presence there for reasons more closely connected with prehistoric matters . On the other hand, there was a continuing influx of material in later years, some of which may have been acquired on later visits to the Somme, as in 1892 when (on honeymoon with his third wife) he revisited Abbeville and Saint-Acheul as well as travelling to Picquigny, whence he had acquired in 1880 a rich assemblage of Frankish jewellery (see p. 117) (Joan Evans 1964, p. 23). Other items may have been channelled to Evans through dealers (see below), but speak just as clearly of an independent interest. The importance of this early collection of northern French material is rendered all the more significant by the destruction suffered during two World Wars by regional museums such as those at Abbeville, Arras and Boulogne, in which several collections compiled by Evans's contemporaries in France were lost.

160 140 120 100 80 60 40

20 0

...,_,...r-,---r-

1835

,-,--r,-,--rr-r-,-..-,--,-.,--r-,---

1645

1850

1ao5

1670

1675

1660

1665

16QS

lg()()

l gc)S

Fig. 2. Annual acquisitions of European antiquities by Sir John Evans for the period 1835-1908. The calculations are based on dates recorded in the accession registers of the Ashmolean : classical antiquities from Greece are excluded , as are items from Asia Minor , the Near East and Egypt. Other European material acquired by Evans is known to have been donated to the British Museum or to have been sold : these items do not feature here . Also excluded are the considerable numbers of items acquired by Evans for which no date of purchase is recorded . The patterns of acquisition represented in the diagram show no very strong correspondence between the Migration Period finds and those of any other period, suggesting that Evans' s interest in them was both sustained and independent of his other activities.

THE COLLECTION

2

In later years the Evans family travelled widely in Europe by train. These forays often represented John Evans's only respite from a demanding daily routine and the fact that the family regularly travelled second-class underscores not only his sense of purposefulness but also the fact that there were finite limits to his purchasing power when it came to extending the collection (see Joan Evans 1943, p. 150). In 1870 they visited Denmark and Sweden (Evans also visiting France in that year in the company of the friend he described as his 'second self', A.W. Franks: see Caygill and Cherry 1997, p. 85) and in 1872 ventured through Austria, Hungary, Moravia and Galicia. Thereafter the periodic meetings of the Congres International d' Anthropologie et d' Archeologie provided a framework for these travels: Evans, often in the company of his wife and eldest daughters, attended those at Stockholm (1874), Budapest (1876), Lisbon (1880), Paris (1889 and 1900) and Monaco (1906). Further additions to the collection undoubtedly would have been brought back on these occasions (see, for example, 17.1) and contacts established which brought continuing benefits (see pp. 22--4).

(For the Hebdomadal Council and Visitors of the Ashmolean only.] GIFT BY DR. ARTHUR EVANS OF ANGLO-SAXON JEWELRY TO THE ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM.

ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM, OXFORD,

Dec. 10, 1908.

DEAR MR. VICE-CHANCELLOR, I am handing over as a free gift to the Ashmolean Museum the Collection of Anglo-Saxon Jewelry and other relics bequeathed to me by my father, Sir JOHN EVANS. With it is also a Comparative Series illustrating the early Teutonic Art of the Continent, including specimens of Scandinavian, Franki sh, Lombard and Gothic work. I venture to believe that some of the specimens of AngloSa xon goldsmiths ' work will not be found unworthy to set beside King Alfred's Jewel. It is also my wish to provide a large Exhibition Case to hold the Collection. Believe me , Dear Mr. Vice-Chancellor, Yours very truly, ARTHUR J. EVANS, Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum.

Fig. 3. Printed record of the donation of Sir John Evans ' s collection to the Ashmolean , 1909.

3

THE COLLECTION

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