EARLY ANGLO-SAXON CHRISTIAN RELIQUARIES
Secular Art or Sacred Symbols? BOX TYPE I COMPONENTS AND METAL FRAGMENTS OF BOXES
Decorative Features Of the forty-one Types 1 boxes, Stanlake, Uncleby Graves 30 and 31 (Smith 1912, 151) and Yatesbury (Merewether 1851, 87-102) are no longer extant and their full decorative details unrecorded. Those from Painsthorpe Wold Barrow 4 Grave 6a and Marina Drive Grave B3/B4 are undecorated; Aldborough, Ascotunder-Wychwood and Hurdlow have incised motifs. The outstanding feature on the remaining are the repousse decorated display schemes incorporated into their manufacture. This demonstrate that individual signs, symbols and decorations were not spontaneous artistic inspirations conceived during or after the construction of the boxes but were predetermined, applied to individual components prior to final assembly. Interpretation of the decorative schemes of Type l boxes are complex and divides opinion, they are viewed either as artistic displays on secular artefacts or they represent Christian symbolism; if the latter is correct the boxes would have religious significance. Since the publication of Faussett's Inventorium Sepulchrale in which editor Roach Smith in a footnote (Faussett 1856, 58) relating to the Kingston Down Grave 96 box opined " The box itself appears to have been intended for pins, needles and such small implements used for female attire". This statement would initially appear to have some support. Walton Rogers (2007, 40-41) termed the Harford Farm Type lll box a "needle case". Further the incomplete box found in SFB N4 at Dover Painted House with 189 loom weights and three spindle-whorls could be considered to have a similar association. Excavators and researchers (e g. Mathews, 1962, Philp 1973, Bayliss and Hines, 2015) term them, often with caveats, 'work or thread boxes' on account that some (Table 3) contained textile, pins and thread that could be associated with sewing repair kits. Others (e g. Ager 1989, Hawkes and Grainger 2006, Welch et al 2008, French 2011, Hills 2011) argue that the boxes should be seen as amulet boxes or Christian reliquaries and their contents viewed as brandea. In most cases the patterns, signs and symbols on boxes are defined by conclusions expressed above.
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