Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 6.djvu/207

 AT GELDESTONE, NORFOLK. Ill vase, used for burial, has been found in this country, which precisely resembles the present specimen, approaching, as it does, pretty nearly to the form and size of the celebrated Portland Vase, though of course not to be compared with it in workmansliip, fineness, and beauty. The vase, found at Geldestone, is entirely without ornament. It has a flange at top and bottom, made by the glass-blower while the glass was soft. It appears that no tool has been attached to the bottom, but that, after the artificer had blown the glass into a kind of oval, he pushed its lower extremity inwards, at the same time producing an expansion of the circumference outwards, so as to form a very excellent foot for the vessel to stand uj)on. With equal dexterity he has turned the lip outwards, so as to produce the corresponding flange at the top.^ I could not ascertain that the vessel had any lid. When I first saw some of the fragments, they appeared to me so fresh, that I doubted whether the vessel was Roman. I chd not perceive the slightest appearance of corrosion. Never- theless, the form and colour were exactly those with which I was familiar as characteristic of Roman glass. In illustration of this peculiarity, I may quote the following remarks of Sir Joseph Banks, in his description of an urn which was found, A.D. 1794, at Ashby Puerorum, in Lincolnshire {Archaeologia, vol. XII., p. 96) : — " The urn is made of strong glass, well-manufactured, greenish, but not more so than green window-glass usually is : when found, it was perfect in all respects, and had not suffered any of that decay, which generally renders the surface of Roman glass of a pearly or opaline hue ; for the surface was as smooth and as firm as if it had newly come from the fire." The Geldestone urn contained the remains of the burnt bones of a child apparently not more than two or three years Old. I shall hereafter produce the eidence, which, I think, proves them to have been the ashes of a Uttle boy. Those remains which I particularly distinguished, were por- tions of the cranium showing the sutures, of the pelvis, the ulna or femur, and some of the ribs. These bones had evidently been calcined by fire, being full of minute cracks. '' Tlie dimensions of this vase arc, as the neck and the handles is somewliat follows: Ileijiht, 1 1 1 in.; diameter at the unequal. A cinerary i;lass (I iota, very largest part, . 'I in.; diameter of the mouth, similar in form, discovered in a Roman ri in.; diameter of neck, 3 in.; diameter tomb near 'icsl)aden, is preserved in the of the base, 4]- in. The space between Museum at that town.