Sarre Grave 68

LXVIII. A grave nearly as deep as the last. A sword at the left hand, and an umbo (broken) on the right side; the ribs of a small bronze bucket, a knife, and some tags and studs, a fragment of a comb [KAS 472] with metal teeth.[1] At the waist a large buckle of the triangular shape [KAS 503], thickly plated with gold all over, and having for the middle of its triangle a thin plate of gold, ornamented with a characteristic entwining pattern. This singularly beautiful buckle is three inches and three-quarters in length. At the hinge of its tongue is a socket once filled with a boss of ivory, part of which still remains, and surrounded apparently with jewels; it has a gilt boss at each point of its triangle.In the Inventorium Sepulchrale is figured a smaller buckle of the same design, but with bronze bosses only; and the late Lord Londesborough took another like the latter from a barrow on Breach down.[2][1] It is curious to observe the ingenious manner in which three broken teeth in this fragment of comb have been replaced by pins of bronze, inserted between the two layers of ivory which form the comb's back. The dark spot represented in the woodcut is the discoloration of the ivory by the bronze. – T. G. F.[2] See Inv. Sep., plate viii. fig. 8. 'Miscellanea Graphica,' plate xxxiii. Archaeologia, vol. xxxiv., and vol. xxxvi. plate i. p. 179. – J.B.