Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/197

Rh which were classed as belonging to the Helveto-Roman age.

The Museum of Avenches exhibits many shoes obtained from the Roman ruins of Avencium, the ancient capital of Helvetia. They have all, with one exception, six nail-holes; the largest has eight. In the excavations made at Grange, near Cossonay (Canton Vaud), relics of the same kind have been picked up. The figure of one designed by M. Bieler, gives its size as barely 4 inches in length and 3 inches in breadth (fig. 27). It has low calkins, and a slight groove runs from heel to heel. Altogether, it looks a much more recent shoe than any of those usually ascribed to the Celtic or Gallo-Roman age; though M. Bieler is of opinion that it belongs to the third century. A specimen in the Berne Museum, and which was dug out of a tumulus at Garchwyl, near Berne,, does not differ much in appearance from the last. It was found with a very fine specimen of a vase and other articles, but their age is uncertain. The tumulus was supposed to be very old—anterior, it was surmised, to our era, and at any rate not dating any later than the third or fourth century. In appearance it is more modern, and is chiefly remarkable for having the groove