Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 7.djvu/170

 122 EARLY SLAVONIC ANTIQUITIES, posing the author's theory as therein explained to be correct. He says that not being satisfied with the opinion expressed by all, even Russian antiquarians, that the numismatic history of Russia commenced with Wladimir the Great (a. c. 980-1015), while heathen coins of the eighth and ninth centuries were found among the Chechs and the Lechs, he had persevered in his search after monuments of this description of an earher date. The coins of the East being of too marked a character to afford any hope of dis- covering Russian elements among them, he turned his attention to the gold bracteates often discovered in the north, and to the so-called barbaric coins ascribed, without further proof than commonly received opinion, to the Celtic nations. He found (or fancied that he found) what he searched for among both, and thus, if correct, has not only made a most important addition to the numismatic history of Russia, but has thrown a light upon a numerous but hitherto unexplained class of coins, the bracteates. The coins so discovered by him are eight in number — one is a silver medal in the Royal Museum of Berlin, and the remaining seven gold bracteates, which had been described and figured by Mr. Thomson, the Director of the Royal Medallic Cabinet at Copenhagen, for an intended work upon all dubious and interesting gold amulets. This work, it appears, was discontinued after eight plates had been engraved, containing seventy-seven figured gold amulets, Mr. Thomsen having discovered at Stockholm a collection of the same kind, which doubled the amount of those he was previously acquainted with, and rendered a re-arrangement of the series necessary. The eight medals discovered by our author to be of Slavonic origin arc respectively of the reigns of Rurik (868-879), Olcch (879-913), Ilior I. (913-945), Olha (945), Svyatoslav (945-972), and Wladimir I. (980- 1015). The second letter, addressed to Herr Theodor von Nar- l)utt, consists of remarks upon various objects figured in the illustrations to his (Narbutt's) History of Lithuania, — coins, seals, &c., illustrative of the antiquities and traditions of Lithuania. The author there declares his opinion that the greater number of these gold bracteates belong to Poland, Russia, Lithuania, and the Slavonians of the Baltic, and adds a description of severnl of them.