Notice of a remarkable bronze ornament with horns, found in Galloway, now at Abbotsford : also of a bronze ornament like a "swines head," found in Banffshire / by John Alexander Smith.

Date:
1870
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notice of a remarkable bronze ornament with horns, found in Galloway, now at Abbotsford : also of a bronze ornament like a "swines head," found in Banffshire / by John Alexander Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    attention was paid to it at the time. As it apparently belonged to the same class of relics as the Abbotsford bronze, I thought it best to bring it more fully under the notice of the members. It is also a very remark- able bronze, and belongs to the same class of late Celtic antiquities, although perhaps of an earlier character than the one just described. This bronze is now preserved in the Banff Institution, and I copy the details of its discovery from the New Statistical Account of Scotland (1845). The Eev. G-eorge Innes, in his account of the parish of Deskford, Banff- shire, dated August 1836, writes as follows:— There was found, about twenty years ago, on the confines of a farm called Liechestowu, the resemblance of a swine's head in brass, of the ordinary size, with a wooden tongue, movable by springs. It had also eyes, and the resemblance in every respect was wonderfully exact. It was found at a depth of about G feet, in a mossy and knoll}' piece of ground upon a bed of clay. The ground abounded with hazel nuts, which looked entire, but upon being opened were found empty. This antique curiosity is now in the possession of the Banff Institution, to which it was presented by the Honourable Colonel Grant, to whom it was given by the tenant who found it on his farm. This singularly shaped piece of bronze work, when laid on its side for facility of description, may be compared to a boar's head. It measures in greatest length 8| inches, by 5^ inches in greatest breadth imme- diately behind the orbits. There is a circular opening, eye-hole or orbit on each side, measuring 1^ inch in diameter; these open orbits are 5J inches distant from each other over the rounded front of the head (or 3^ inches apart in a straight line), and they are lOf inches separate, measuring round the lower or back part of the head. From the back part of the bronze to the posterior edge of the circular opening or orbit, it measures nearly 1^ inch, the eye-hole 1^ inch across, and from the front of the eye-hole to the extremity of the snout, about 5h inches. (See Plate XLVI. fig. 1.) The head may bo described as formed of several plates of bronze. First a plate of embossed bronze, bent into a circular form, and measur- ing 17 inches in circumference, behind the projecting ornaments sur- rounding the circular openings or eyes; this band of bronze is straight posteriorly, and has its edge turned outwards all round into a small lip.
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