On 26th March 1926 a cist burial was discovered by the grave-digger in the cemetery of Penllwyn Calvinistic Methodist Chapel, near Aberystwyth, Cardiganshire. Notice of the find was sent to Mr. George Eyre Evans, of Aberystwyth, and the buried cist was examined by him and the minister of the congregation, the Rev. M. H. Jones, B.A. I cannot do better than quote the account of the cist and its contents written down by the former immediately after the discovery.

On the southern walls of many churches in England dials are to be found of a kind which is peculiar to this country. They take the form of a semicircle with lines radiating from the centre, at which there is a. hole for the style or gnomon. This is always missing. They are known as scratch dials, incised sundials, mass clocks, primitive sundials, or sexton's wheels. The earliest known is one on Bewcastle Cross, Cumberland. It is a perfect example of the type, and the date assigned to it is A.D. 675. A diagram of this dial is given in fig. 1.

The two daggers here illustrated (pl. xxvii) are of interest both on account of their traditional attribution, but more especially for their technical value as examples of a type which has persisted for over two hundred years. The popular name for this type is Kidney Dagger, Ballock Knife, Dague à Rognons, of course derived from the two excrescences which take the place of a cross-guard on the hilt.

The type, first appearing in the fourteenth century, became stabilized at the end of the fifteenth century, and seems to have been peculiarly English. The outstanding examples in public or private collections are the following:—

The earliest representation is on the brass of Sir William de Aldeburgh at Aldeburgh about 1360, and we find it later on the Arundel effigy of John Fitz-Alan, 1434.

Considerable interest attaches to the Car Dyke as it has been claimed as a Roman work by several authorities (Dr. Cyril Fox, Archaeology of the Cambridge Region, p. 179). In June of this year I attempted to make sure of the date by cutting a section through the fosse.

When a well was sunk through the bank of the dyke at the Lodge, Waterbeach, many years ago, the workmen cut through a boat of some kind. It seems reasonable to suppose that this boat dates from the time when the dyke was still full of water, and had been left moored in some little creek or dock probably near a settlement site. I therefore cut a section as near as possible to the well, that is, within a few yards of the south-east corner of the Lodge. It has not been possible to complete the section or reach the bottom of the ditch owing to the wet summer. The water-level was found at a depth of 4 ft. The section, however, cut through the middle of a small dwelling on the very lip of the ditch, debris from it forming a thin stratum separating different layers of silt. From the contents of the midden which formed the floor of the hut it was evident that the site was one of the Pagan Saxon Period.

Alchester is a flat site of some 26 acres, 11 miles from Oxford and 1½ from Bicester, in the parish of Wendlebury, on gravel over clay. Remains of a bank and ditch enclose it, forming approximately a square, the axis of which runs nearly N. 40 W. At the south-east corner is a mound 4 ft. 9 in. high, and remains of another at the north-east.

From south to north through the site passes the Roman road which comes from Dorchester over Shotover Hill and across Otmoor: it goes on past Bicester north by east towards Watling Street near Towcester. On entering Alchester this road deviates some thirty yards east from its direct course (with which the ramparts are aligned), to rejoin which at its exit on the north it runs askew across the site N. 10° W.—an unexplained peculiarity.