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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 July 2011
The ancient box-wood casket of western origin which forms the subject of this paper measures 6 in. in length, 2¾ in. in width, and has a total height of 3½ in. It consists of two parts—the remarkably well-preserved box and its somewhat damaged lid; both are ‘dug out’, from the solid, not ‘built up’, as was the method employed in making contemporary ivory or bone caskets. The lower portion is brick-shaped, whilst the lid is ridged, somewhat like the roof of a house, the gable-ends however being set back, as is the case with the earlier bone casket, of Anglo-Saxon workmanship, preserved in the Brunswick Museum.
page 91 note 1 Derived from early sarcophagi.
page 91 note 2 Longhurst, English Ivories, no. ii, 2, 67, 68; pls. 13, 14.
page 91 note 3 The darker colour of the lid may possibly be due to its having been hidden in a chimney.
page 91 note 4 Since the above paper was read, the lid of the casket has passed into the possession of the writer, and the ‘Nelson casket’, thus happily reconstituted, has been placed on loan in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
page 91 note 5 Ann Bootham, née Wood, was born 1764, married 1796, and died 1848. Her daughter, Mary, was born at Coleford, Forest of Dean, 1799, whence the family removed, soon after her birth, to Uttoxeter. Mary Bootham married William Howitt, 1821, and their daughter Margaret was born 1839. The family later removed to Italy, William Howitt dying in Rome, 1879, and Mary, in the same city, 1888. In the following year Margaret Howitt published her mother's Autobiography. The lid of the casket was acquired, either by gift or purchase, by John Hungerford Pollen, whilst resident in Rome, whose widow subsequently gave it to the Convent of the Sacred Heart.
page 92 note 1 Compare the dress in the same scene in the Benedictional of St. Ethelwold.
page 92 note 2 The front, with its three scenes, may be contrasted with that of the Franks Casket, which has two, one secular, the other sacred.
page 92 note 3 The Apocryphal Gospels, ed. Harris Cowper, pp. 53, 54.
page 92 note 4 Luke ii. 7
page 92 note 5 Isaiah i. 3
page 93 note 1 Habakkuk iii. 2. In the Greek version this wrongly reads: ἐν μέσῳ δύο ζῴων γνωσθήση the passage in the Vulgate is correctly translated from the original Hebrew, In medio annorum notum facies, ‘In the midst of the years thou shalt make it known’. The mistranslation in the Greek version is due to the incorrect rendering Shenaim 
two, in place of Shānīm 
years.*
page 93 note 2 Longhurst, English Ivories, no. xiii, 13; pl. 19.
page 93 note 3 Dalton, Catalogue of the Ivory Carvings of the Christian Era in the British Museum, no. 10.
page 93 note 4 Longhurst, Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory in the Victoria and Albert Museum, i, pl. xi, 34.
page 93 note 5 Dalton, Catalogue of the Ivory Carvings of the Christian Era in the British Museum, no. 53
* My thanks are due to the Rev. S. Frampton for this information.
page 94 note 1 This figure is very similar in treatment to the angel over the Confessors in the Benedictional of St. Ethelwold.
page 94 note 2 Mark xi. 2.
page 94 note 3 As in the Benedictional of St. Ethelwold.
page 94 note 4 Mark xi. 8.
page 94 note 5 John xii. 13.
page 95 note 1 Dalton, A Guide to the Early Christian and Byzantine Antiquities in the British Museum, pl. ii.
page 95 note 2 John xix. 25.
page 95 note 3 Mark xv. 40.
page 95 note 4 Matthew xx. 20.
page 95 note 5 John xix. 29, ‘and they filled a spunge with vinegar and put it upon hyssop’.
page 95 note 6 John xix. 26.
page 95 note 7 Matthew xxvii. 54.
page 95 note 8 John xix. 34.
page 95 note 9 Longhurst, English Ivories, no. vii, 71, 72, pl. 15.
page 95 note 10 Ibid, vi, 6, pl. 15.
page 96 note 1 The Magdalen also occurs on the Ruthwell cross.
page 96 note 2 John xx. 14–17.
page 96 note 3 John xx. 1, ‘cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre’.
page 96 note 4 Dalton, Byzantine Art, fig. 123.
page 96 note 5 Sotheby's, Sale Catalogue, 1893, lot 29, pl. 11.Google Scholar
page 96 note 6 Dalton, Catalogue of the Ivory Carvings of the Christian Era in the British Museum, no. 43
page 96 note 7 Anna Jameson, Legends of the Madonna, 296.
page 96 note 8 John ii. 1–11.
page 97 note 1 Dalton, Catalogue of the Ivory Carvings of the Christian Era in the British Museum, no. 48.
page 97 note 2 Compare the two angels vis-à-vis immediately above the last six apostles in the Benedictional of St. Ethelwold.
page 98 note 1 Acts i. 9–12.
page 98 note 2 Archaeologia, xxiv, 329 ff.
page 98 note 3 It also occurs on a reliquary-lid, from the Treasure of Sancta Sanctorum, now preserved in the Vatican Library.