Sarre Grave 90

XC. A woman's grave, the bones tolerably perfect. A bronze buckle [KAS 321] on the left; an iron ring, apparently the link of a chain; close under the chin, beads of amber and porcelain [KAS 294], unusually rude and unartistic, and with them a circular gold pendant. A quantity of gold braid [KAS 366c] round the skull, evidently once woven or laced into either the hair or the head-dress, and closely resembling that described under Grave IV.The pendant, also, is much like those found in that grave, and of the medium size there described. At its edge is a beading, and within it an ornamented border; the centre bears those strange figures so common upon these ornaments, and, as Professor Stephens of Copenhagen informs me, quite familiar to northern antiquaries, and of frequent occurrence throughout Scandinavia. 'The ground type,' he writes to me, 'is a writhed worm with gaping jaws, and headless intertwining snakes, all making, as it were, one serpent.' Numerous examples of these golden bracteates are given in Thomson's Atlas de l'Archéologue du Nord, some exactly resembling these found at Sarr, others differing widely from them. But these are evidently debased copies of the Scandinavian type, possibly the spoil of Danish invaders, but more probably the work of the Jutes themselves or of foreign artists employed by them, and degenerated from the original designs brought over at their first immigration.