In the spring of 1841 the Beglerbeg, or Chief of Asterabad, a province on the south-eastern shores of the Caspian sea, sent to the Shah of Persia some ancient gold vessels and other curious objects which had been found in an artificial mound near the town of Asterabad. Having been favoured with the sight of them, and taken a sketch of each specimen separately, I had the curiosity to visit during the summer of the same year the spot from whence they had been excavated, and, as this discovery may interest the Society of Antiquaries, and aid them in their researches on the country of the ancient Scythians and Parthians, I take the liberty of offering for their inspection the accompanying drawings, together with a short description of them, and a topographical delineation of the place. (Plate XVI.)

The Myth of the Phœnix is one of the most ancient in the world. Originally a temple-type of the immortality of the soul, its birth-place appears to have been the sunny clime of the fanciful and gorgeous East. Even in the days of Job and of David it was already a popular tradition in Palestine and Arabia. Afterwards it passed over to Egypt, Greece, and Rome; but, as it went, lost feather after feather, until the spiritual, and delicate, and beautiful parable sank into the tangible folk-legend of a nine days' wonder. The fathers of the Christian Church were the first to restore to it its original form and hidden meaning.

The Board of Ordnance having at your request presented to the Society of Antiquaries one of the stone Shot recently dug out of the bed of the ditch of this fortress, I have considered that it might not be altogether uninteresting to the Society to be made acquainted with such information respecting it as my residence within the garrison has afforded me facilities of obtaining.

In compliance with your request I proceed to furnish a few memoranda of circumstances attending the opening of some barrows in the south of Dorsetshire, indicating the differences that prevail between the barrows of that part of the country and those that have been opened so numerously in the county of Kent. Those differences are so many and so distinct that it will at once be manifest that the two classes have little in common, save the principle of tumular interment; and that they are respectively the construction of a different people, and have been erected at distant eras. To this difference, however, there is one—and so far as I have been enabled to ascertain, but one—exception, in the remarkable barrow recently investigated at Iffin's Wood near Canterbury, and described by you in the first portion of the thirtieth volume of the Archæologia. The contents of this barrow are of a character precisely similar to those I am now about to describe. The construction of the barrow, the material and form of the urns, their inverted position, the irregularity of their depositure, are all in strict accordance with the peculiar features of the Dorsetshire barrows.

I am just recovering from an attack of illness, or I would certainly have sooner acknowledged your kind attention in sending me six copies of your report on my Collection from Sacrificios, for which I beg to return you my best thanks.

Your observations on the whole coincide with my own preconceived opinions, with the exception of what I consider one of its most important points; I allude to the antiquity of the collection, which you consider to have been the work of the Aztecks, or comparatively modern Mexicans, of the period of the Conquest by Cortez. You will I hope excuse me if I differ from you in this respect, and that you will permit me to make the following observations thereon. I premise by stating, that by far the greater portion, and indeed the best of the specimens, were found at a depth of from ten to fourteen feet in rich dark soil; my objections, therefore, to your view of the case is principally founded on the geology of the island of Sacrificios.

The vase which I have taken for the subject of the present paper (see Plate XVIII.) is peculiar for two reasons; from its style and fabric being a transition between those called Corinthian, Nolano-Egyptian, or Phœnician, and for its exhibition of a subject, if not untreated, yet not clearly exhibited by any other monument of ancient art. It is evidently the produce of the furnaces of the Etruscan population, and is a connecting link between the before-mentioned and Tyrrhenian styles. The subject is in black on a pale clay-coloured background, with red and white accessaries; the drawings coarse, with the usual scratched marks, and the principal story a Greek tradition of the Iliad treated in an Italian manner. It was purchased of Signor Campanari, and was, I believe, found at Cære or Agylla.

I have had much gratification in looking over the “Extracts in prose and verse from an old English Medical Manuscript” preserved in the Royal Library at Stockholm; and I trouble you with the accompanying observations, which may, perhaps, tend to elucidate some of the doctrines contained in it.

I have had the pleasure of receiving from my friend Mr. Pearsall, of Carlsruhe (who, by his very interesting communications, is already known to the Society of Antiquaries), a Description and Rubbing of the monumental brass of Bishop Hallum, in the cathedral of Constance; both which I hope may be acceptable to the Society, and therefore I beg leave to put them into your hands.

Among the ornaments of the splendid votive altar exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries last year by M. le colonel Theubet were three antique engraved gems, one of which, I believe, represented a head of Socrates, another a scarabæus, and the third a figure offering sacrifice at an altar. We have many proofs of the care with which ancient gems and cameos were sought and preserved in the middle ages, and it is probable that some of the most beautiful specimens known in modern times have been derived from the monastic treasuries. The superstition of a barbarous age regarded these relics as things endowed with magic qualities, which possessed healing and protective virtues that rendered them precious to the possessor. It appears that they were sometimes even regarded as natural productions, not formed by the hand of man. As early as the twelfth century (at least) we meet with regular inventories of such gems, with an enumeration of their virtues according to the figures they bore; and I now beg to lay before the society an inventory of this kind in Latin, which is the one of most common occurrence in manuscripts. It appears to me that it possesses considerable interest, and that it may be appropriately introduced by a few anecdotes from old writers illustrative of the excavations and researches amid the ruins of antiquity made by monks and others in the middle ages.

My attention was lately drawn at the Scarborough Museum to a small course dark earthen vase, having fifteen perforations like loop-holes through it, which was found, together with an urn, in a tumulus, barrow, or howe, at Corn-Boots, or Camp-Butts, near Hackness and Scalby, about four miles north-west of Scarborough. It is two inches and a quarter high, and three inehes in diameter, and is ornamented with horizontal, perpendicular, and oblique lines. The sketch of it which I send herewith, affords a correct representation.

A document of the highest constitutional importance, and of much historical interest, is in the possession of William Staunton esquire, of Longbridge House, near Warwick, who has entrusted it to my care with the view of its being submitted to the inspection of the Society. It is an original Patent of King Edward the Sixth, dated on the 24th of December, in the first year of his reign, appointing the Duke of Somerset to be Governor of his person, Protector of the Realm, and Lieutenant and Captain-general of the Wars.

I am happy to have an opportunity of sending to you for inspection, and if you think right for exhibition before the Society of Antiquaries, some relics of the olden time, which have lately been brought to light by the operations now carrying on in the bed of the Thames, between Kingston and Hampton Court, and at a short distance from my residence. The ballast heavers have been raising a vast mass of gravel and soil from the bed of the river, to raise and improve the barge-walk, and render it more passable during the floods. The process has been going on for some time, chiefly on the Middlesex side; and many memorials of remote times have been recovered, principally instruments of a warlike character. I have been able to secure some of them for my small collection. These objects are all found about seven feet below a bed of gravel, and resting about two feet deep in a bed of blue clay. I am keeping a sharp look out for other discoveries of the same kind; but, as the river is now rising fast, the depth of water will probably delay for a time the chance of meeting with any more. You are aware that several objects of this description, and found in the same vicinity, have been for some time in our friend and my neighbour Jesse's possession. Many of them, and they are very fine and beautiful specimens of the kind, were discovered a few years ago, during the operation of sinking the cofferdams for our new bridge.

Mr. Richard Almack, F.S.A., of Long Melford, Suffolk, a gentleman who possesses a store of original correspondence, and documentary materials for English history, both of a public and personal nature, has placed in my hands the counterpart of a lease from the Earl of Bedford to Sir William Cecil, afterwards the Lord Treasurer Burghley, and bearing the signature of that great statesman, to be submitted to the inspection of the Society of Antiquaries.

The constitution and regulations of ancient guilds and commercial fraternities afford a subject which, it has been admitted, is deserving of greater investigation than it has hitherto received, as a branch of the social history of our ancestors. It is evident that they were institutions in the nature of benefit societies, affording a community of religious as well as secular advantages, and bound together by private laws to maintain the interests and the mysteries of their crafts. Though usually in large cities confined to the members of a particular trade, a guild sometimes comprehended the workmen of several occupations.

I have great pleasure in complying with your wish to have copies of my sketches of the Refectory of the Priory at Great Malvern for publication in the Archaeologia of the Society of Antiquaries. (Plates XX. XXI.) It may add something to the interest of the subject, and at the present moment may furnish an useful illustration of the danger to which the valuable remains of the olden times are exposed for want of proper and effectual protection, were I to describe the circumstances under which I found this interesting specimen of the domestic architecture of the 14th century, and its subsequent fate. The story is told in few words. In the year 1837, I discovered it in the state represented in the sketches; two years subsequently it had ceased to exist. Owing, I believe, to the exterior having been very much disguised by recent repairs, it had remained unnoticed until the period above named, when curiosity led me to Malvern, to examine the beautiful Priory Church at that place. After gratifying this feeling, I devoted the little time I had to spare to an examination of the surrounding buildings, when my attention was attracted by a large barn, at a short distance to the south, in which I fancied I could discern some indications of old work in traceried windows. Having obtained an entrance to the interior, I found it nearly filled with the produce of the farm to which it was attached; but the extraordinary and beautiful roof stood clear and free above the accumulated produce with which the lower part was incumbered. Not anticipating such a discovery, the little time I had to spare only allowed me to make one hurried sketch of the exterior and one of the interior, with a few memoranda of mouldings; delighted with the opportunity of securing so much, and hoping at some future time to revisit the place for the purpose of making more careful notes of its proportions, construction, and peculiarity of form and ornament. Before, however, this opportunity occurred, the utilitarian spirit of its possessor had occasioned its entire demolition; and I regret very much to add, that, notwithstanding I had mentioned my discovery to several antiquaries who take an interest in the ancient domestic architecture of the country, I believe it was seen by few and drawn by none. My own sketches may, therefore, as far as I am aware, be considered as the only records of a specimen of domestic work which belongs to an early period, is interesting as connected with an important monastic establishment, and more so for the peculiarities of its decorations, which, as far as I know, are unique in their application to such a purpose.