3rd-5th century AD. A group comprising: a solid mass of corroded rivetted iron links forming a byrnie (mail-shirt), with an iron bar (or blade?) to the centre; a spatha-type longsword with short tang, broad parallel-sided blade and wide point, folded six times before deposition; probably a sacrificial deposit in conjunction with a spear, sword or other weapon(s); the mail-shirt possibly rapping another object or objects of value. See Engelhardt, C. Fynske Mosefund, Copenhagen, 1869; Carver, M. Sutton Hoo. A Seventh Century Princely Burial Ground and its Context, London, 2005; Nørgård Jørgensen, A. & Andersen, H.C.H. Ejsbøl Mose. Die Kriegsbeuteropfering in Moor von Ejsbøl aus dem späten 1.Jh.v.Chr. bis zum frühen 5.Jh.n.Chr., Højbjerg, 2014. 15 kg total, 20.5-37cm (8 - 14 1/2"). From the family collection of a South East London collector; formerly acquired in the late 1950s. Mailshirts form one of the standard forms of equipment sacrificed to the gods of victory after battle in the later Roman Iron Age and the subsequent early medieval period. Examples were found in the Iron Age bog deposits at Vimose in Denmark where the mailcoat was evidently part of the wargear of a defeated foe singled out for special treatment, and the earlier boat finds at Hjortspring, also Denmark. Corrosion of the soft iron into a heavy mass is not unusual: the byrnie recovered from Mound 1 at Sutton Hoo, Suffolk, England was similarly corroded into a block (BM accession no. 1939,1010.92.4"). The presence of an iron panel, possibly a blade, may indicated that the shirt was folded round some small weapon (dagger?) or that such a weapon was laid on top of the shirt upon deposition. The spatha sword recovered at the same site(?) had been severely damaged to put it beyond human use before it went into the ground with the byrnie and other items. [2, No Reserve]Fair condition; byrnie corroded solid but some individual links visible at the exterior; sword in fine condition.