IBRARY

The Antiquary.

JANUARY, 1895.

Notes of the Month.

IN our "Notes of the Month" for December we mentioned a small bronze that had turned up at Tullie House, Carlisle, with Kpovos on a paper label on its wooden stand, and a supposed Etruscan inscription cut on the bronze itself. It has since been submitted to the authorities at the British Museum, who pronounce the figure interesting and genuine, a verdict which they decline to extend, in both its branches, to the inscription. The bronze is evidently a part of one of the feet of an Etruscan bronze cista. It represents a satyr with wings, and the wings are explained by the necessity of having a broad surface to make a secure attachment. This figure has become detached from the cista, and fallen into the hands of someone who has sawn off the figure's legs and mounted it on a wooden stand with Kpovos on a paper label pasted thereon; while on the figure's breast he has cut the word "Krunus" in Etruscan characters. Two or three things betray the fraud; the lettering is wrong; the word "Krunus" does not appear to have been known to the Etruscans, and an inscription in such a place is very unusual. The fraud is probably the work of some Italian dealer in antiquities, bent upon improving a genuine piece of antiquity into a more saleable article. The condition of the label, and of the wooden stand show that the fraud must be of some age-perhaps a century. The bronze has been in the Museum certainly twenty years, perhaps fifty.

VOL. XXXI.

A fine carved head, in red sandstone, of Roman date has just been added to the Tullie House collections; it appears to have been found there during the excavations for the foundations, and to have been carried off by one of the navvies, who kept it until stress of circumstances, or thirst for beer, forced him to realize. It represents a face with bold profile; the hair, which is done in small coils, is confined by a narrow fillet round the head, and carried down the side of the face to meet the whiskers and beard, which are dressed in the same manner.

Mr. R. Holmes, of Pontefract, draws attention in a local newspaper to an interesting discovery. He says: "The Pontefract watersupply is now being extended to Carleton, or rather to the Pontefract Ward outskirts of that village, and during the excavations necessary for laying the pipes, a very interesting discovery has been made of an old-world bouldered road. This was uncovered on the rising ground between the railway-bridge and the Rest-and-be-Thankful,' which was placed by the late Rev. J. Armitage Rhodes about two-thirds up the hill.

The

"The bouldered road was clearly that 'way to Carleton Cross,' towards the reparation of which Robert Austwick, by will dated May 7, 1505, bequeathed the sum of 3s. 4d., an amount by no means so insignificant in those days as it appears in the present. boulders of which the road was composed were of a good granulated sandstone, which had not suffered much from the erosion to which they had been subjected while being. converted into boulders, and which, although their rougher surfaces had been worn down, had not assumed the oval form which they would have done had they come a long distance at a low rate of speed.

"The road at that position illustrates in a very peculiar manner the way in which such Anglian towns as Pontefract were approached. The traveller from Carleton, for instance, passed through an outlying portion of Pontefract, then again a Carleton plot, and finally entered Pontefract at what is now the Bar Terrace. And this system of having interlocking lands was probably adopted as a help in some way to the defence and security of the place. So, leaving Pontefract at the Bar Terrace, he passed through a piece of Carleton, which extended to the left with very well defined boundaries till he reached Swan Hill Lane, when he passed through a similar plot of Pontefract, which had half an acre's extent to his right, though the boundaries have been (quite of recent years) destroyed. The position of this outlying half acre, separated by the main road from the remainder of the original enclosure, is, however, defined by the presence of two gates to the same field, one of which leads to the Pontefract portion, and the other to the half acre which pays rates to Carleton. The termination of this Carleton portion was fixed by the Carleton Cross, and it is now ascertained by the position of 'Rest and-be-Thankful.'

"There are, it may be interesting to know, two other such boundary crosses in different parts of the border of Pontefract, and in somewhat similar positions to that occupied by the Carleton Cross, and all three may be attributed to the twelfth century. The second is the only one of which there are now any remains. It has been called Stump Cross for centuries, probably since its demolition; but its original name was Ralph's Cross, and it was the boundary between Ferrybridge and Pontefract. The third such cross was on the Darrington Road from the Old Church neighbourhood. It was the boun

A most important discovery has been made at Darenth in Kent. It seems that a large number of broken Roman tiles had been observed on the surface of the soil of a field near Darenth church, and with the consent of the tenant a series of trial holes was made in the ground. About a foot below the surface definite foundations of a Roman building were encountered, and the assistance of Mr. George Payne, F.S.A., was called in. Subsequent investigations (which are still proceeding under Mr. Payne's superintendence) have led to the discovery of a Roman villa.

As the exploration is still unfinished, it is impossible to say what remains to be found, but so far, within an area of about half an acre in extent, a quadrangular building has been laid bare. The outer walls are built of flints bound together by mortar, and are plastered on the inside; they are about 2 feet in thickness. The inner walls are not so substantial, but a plaster moulding runs round the lower part of both the walls at their contact with the floor. Two of the rooms have floors paved with tessera of red brick in a good state of preservation. One of the other rooms is paved with large tiles, and remains of a tile floor exist in another. We borrow the following account from the Times, which gives a very good description of the character of this unexpected "find": "Along the north front is a row of five chambers of various widths, but all of the same length north and south, viz., about 27 feet. The largest is nearly square, the next about 18 feet in width, and the three others from 6 to 9 feet wide. Beyond these, on the east, is a tiny room about 6 feet square, and it is probable that other foundations exist in this direction. On the western side of this range of rooms is a large hall, to which probably admission was gained by a corridor which apparently ran in front of them. This hall runs southward to an extent that cannot yet be determined, with