more remarkable of those in the Villa Borghese has been called Britannicus. The statue in the Vatican Museum was found at Otricoli; the annexed woodcut shows its bulla.

The pictures, which exhibit the Lulla, are etchings executed in a peculiar style, and with exquisite delicacy, upon circular plates of glass, which are partially coated with gold.

One of these is now in the British Museum. The glass has the usual appearance of decay and opalescence. It is double, the under fold being merely a protection to the upper. The figure is that of a boy dressed in the tunic and pallium, with the bulla suspended from his neck. Mr. Birch thinks that the attire indicates the period of the Gordians. The figure is in gold, very delicately shaded with black lines, which are etched in the gold on the under surface of the upper fold of glass, so as to be seen on looking down upon the upper surface. Another very interesting circumstance is, that the name of the boy, M. CECILIVS, is placed by his side in gold letters, and presents a remarkable confirmation of the con

clusion, at which I before arrived in explaining the name on Mr. Rogers's bulla. For here we have M. for MARCUS, which is the prænomen, prefixed to CECILIVS, the nomen gentili

tium.

Another specimen of the same kind was obtained by Ficoroni from the ruins of Tivoli, and afterwards belonged to Dr. Conyers Middleton, who represents it in the same engraving with the bulla, its companion. This portrait was likewise purchased by Horace Walpole for his collection at Strawberry Hill. In 1842 it was bought by C. Wentworth Dilke, Esq., and, by the kindness of that gentleman, I have

2 See Ficoroni, ut supra, p. 12.

now the singular felicity of producing it for inspection. It represents a lady with the boy, who wears the bulla, in her arms. Ficoroni thought that it belonged to the age of Alexander Severus; Middleton (p. 36,) contends for a yet higher antiquity. The boy's dress is exactly the same as in the etching already mentioned, which is in the British Museum. We observe also the two layers of glass cemented together; and the circular border of the glass is entire, so that it does not appear to have been the bottom of a patera, as has been supposed, but to be complete in itself. The lower piece of glass is throughout of a deep blue colour. The upper layer is of the same deep blue, except where we observe a circle of gold near the border and the figures of the mother and child. These portions appear to consist of colourless glass. Thus the figures painted on the under surface of this upper layer are seen as we look down upon it, and the under layer of glass has preserved the painting from injury, so that it is probably as fresh now as when it came more than 1600 years ago from the hands of the artist. The method of fixing the gold to the glass, and of joining the blue glass, called "sapphire," to the white colourless glass, was by placing the composition in a furnace, by the heat of which the glass was partially melted.*

To these examples of pictures on glass may apparently be added one of much larger size, which is engraved by Leichius, and which, as he states, was preserved in the Library at Leipzig. It represents a Roman family, consisting of a boy, who wears the bulla, with his father and mother. Another, formerly at Strawberry Hill, is in the possession of the Rev. Dr. Bliss, of Oxford."

It remains to mention the representations of boys with the bulla in terra cottas. M. Seroux d'Agincourt has engraved three of these. One represents a naked boy standing with the bulla suspended from his neck. Another exhibits a boy with the bulla in like manner hanging from his neck, but clothed and seated on a chair with a tablet on his knees. The third is still more remarkable, the bulla representing three figures, one of which is Mercury.

3 Middleton, ut supra, p. 45.

See Theophilus Presbyter, Div. Art. Schedula, 11. 28; and Inquiry into the style of ancient glass paintings, by C.W. Oxford, 1847, pp. 19, 28, 337.

p.

5 De Diptychis Veterum. Lips. 1743,

15.

6 Proceedings of Arch. Institute at Winchester, p. xxxix., Museum Catal.

7 Recueil de Fragmens de Sculpture en terre cuite, Pl. XIV. Figs. 1, 3, 5.

NOTICE OF REMAINS OF THE ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD,

DISCOVERED AT LITTLE WILBRAHAM, CAMBRIDGESHIRE.

COMMUNICATED BY MR. DECK, F.G.S.

IN the line of the direct Roman road forming part of the Ickling Street-way from Royston to Caistor, and passing through the well-known Devil's Dyke on Newmarket Heath, is a considerable elevation formed by the clunch or lower chalk marl. This is in the parish of Little Wilbraham, about six miles from Cambridge, and is well known to the villagers by the Anglo-Roman name of "Streetway-hill." The whole line abounds with tumuli, as may be observed on the map of the Ordnance Survey, marking the places of sepulture of the honoured dead of the warlike Iceni, the Romans and the Anglo-Saxons, as appears by the explorations made; and at various periods the plough and the spade have turned up numerous interesting relics, showing the successive occupation of the spot by these different races.

About four years since several remarkable fibulæ, armillæ, amulets, coins, and beads, some of which were exhibited at the Oxford Meeting of the Institute, were found, and successive operations have brought to light many other relics and numerous human remains. Early in the last year (1850), the summit of the hill was lowered, and, in effecting this, an escarpment of the chalk marl cut through exhibited the difference of soil that had upon former occasions suggested the probability of a deposit, and which, in many instances, proved to be correct. Upon carefully removing this soil, which was easily effected by the section made in sloping down the cutting, there was found a rectangular grave, 6 ft. 4 in. long, by 2 ft. 8 in. wide, in which was deposited, with much apparent care, a human skeleton of great stature. From the comparative measurement of the femur and tibia, the tenant of this tomb must have exceeded by some inches the height of six feet. The body was laid with the face downwards, and with the feet towards the east.

Partly upon the occipital portion of the cranium, and the cervicular vertebræ, was placed a curious and apparently unique object, the form of which is shown by the accompanying representation. This, I am disposed to regard as a headpiece or kind of crown, intended as a mark of honour