Welsh Journals

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EXCAVATIONS AT MINCHIN HOLE, 1950 The writer, now residing away from Gower, has been unable to undertake any large-scale excavations at Minchin Hole during the present year and his activity in the cave has been confined to two short periods. However, a party of archaeological students from Bath, and local enthusiasts under the direction of Mr. E. J. Mason of Bristol, produced good results. The finds, probably all of the Roman period, included a bone spoon, a bronze penannular brooch, a bronze-wire fibula, three coins and a quantity of pottery, both coarse and Samian. Some additional information on last year's discoveries is now available, and its importance merits publication. Three 9th century silver coins were submitted to Mr. J. Allan of the British Museum, and their identity has been established. One is a penny of Ecgbeorht (Egbert) of Wessex, first King of England, who died in 839, the second a denier of Charlemagne, King of the Franks, who died in 814, and the third a denier of Lothair I, Holy Roman Emperor (and grandson of Charlemagne) who died in 855. These coins, which were found together, were lost or hidden after 850 A.D.-but whether or not their owner was a trader, robber, or settler there is no evidence to show. Coins of the Saxon period are rare in Wales and the only previous find known to the writer was made in Gower in 1825, when about thirty pennies of Ethelred the Unready, who reigned 979 -1016, were discovered during road-making operations under a stone (possibly in a wooden box) near Penrice Castle. J. G. Rutter. CORN TREADING BY SHEEP I recently came across a reference to Gower in a book where I had little reason to expect it. It was in a commentary on the second book of Herodotus' History." In his second book, which is concerned with Egypt, Herodotus describes how the Ancient Egyptians tilled the ground: The husbandman sows his plot of ground and after sowing turns his swine into it-the swine tread in the corn (Herodotus 11, 14). As a parallel to this, the commentator Rawlinson (Herodotus, 1880, Vol. II, p. 22, note 2) notes that: In the district of Gower, in South Wales, corn is trodden in by sheep to this day." As the commentary (or at least the fourth edition) was published in 1880, it would appear that sheep were used in Gower to tread in the seed up to about that date. It would be very interesting if this fact could be confirmed from living memory.