Images from John Mitchell Kemble's "Celtic" Notebook (Vol. 2)

    The first two pages contain pencil and crayon images of Celtic hinges and clasps, probably used in book covers and other household objects.  The other three pages illustrate "fibulae" or cloak pins of a type commonly worn by courtly aristocrats in Roman and Celtic culture.  The notebook does not consistently record much information about where these objects were observed, though this data may be found in  Horae Ferales (1863).  These relatively low-resolution images give only a hint of the detail Kemble was preserving in these drawings.  In an era before the wide-spread use of photography, such drawings were the scholar's only means of reporting his observations to the larger community, and they also were a primary means of knowing his subject.  As he drew them, he observed more and more fine elements of detail.