Abstract
AMONG accessions to the British Museum (Blooms-bury) reported at the April meeting of the Trustees are two which are of outstanding interest on the history of cultural development in Great Britain. Of these the earliest and from its unique character the more arresting comes from a bronze age burial on the north Yorkshire moors. In Loose Howe, a barrow overlooking Rosedale, excavated by Dr. and Mrs. Frank Elgee, was found a coffin consisting of two canoes, with a third canoe beside it. A bronze dagger associated with this burial afforded evidence of date ; but the barrow also contained secondary burials, with one of which was a polished stone axe-hammer of Danish type. Canoe-burial is a new feature in archaeology. The canoes had fresh bark on them and evidently had been made expressly for the burial, pointing to a hitherto unknown ritual of canoe-burial. It has been suggested that such canoe-burials may have given rise to the custom of coffin burial, typical in northern England and Denmark. In view of the conservatism characteristic of later maritime forms and custom in Scandinavia, the comparison with the ship-burials of a much later period inevitably is also suggested. These antiquities are on loan to the Museum by Captain A. W. Milburn. The second object of special interest is a stud ornamented with mlkfiori enamel, found at Chesterholme (Vindolanda) in Northumberland in an early fourth century deposit. It has been given by Mr. Eric Birley. It is the only example of millefiori of a late Roman date as yet found in Britain. It is thought that it may, on further study, provide a link with post-Roman Celtic enamels. Bronze objects belonging to the first Babylonian dynasty, circa 2000 B.C., are additions to examples of the art of a period at present poorly represented in the Museum. They are a bronze bar decorated with a ram's head, and three small figures of women. It is probable that they come from sites nearthe Diyalah River inIraq.
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Accessions to the British Museum (Bloomsbury). Nature 141, 680–681 (1938). https://doi.org/10.1038/141680d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/141680d0