Alfred et al.

Abstract

A distinguishing feature of the ninth century is the amount of precious metal that has survived from it. Some of this comes from hoards, for in contrast to the eighth century there are several with both coins and objects, as well as some only with coins and some only with objects. The latest coin in a hoard provides no more than the earliest possible date at which it could have been deposited, but at least that is a fixed point in one direction, and its owner was unlikely to keep a store of coins for long without occasionally taking some out or putting others in. Objects in hoards, of course, may always include some treasured heirlooms, as may furnished graves, but at least perceived similarity to works in other media is not their only dating criterion. A few objects can be dated because they have an identifiable name on them. A gold and niello ring inscribed Ethelwulf R[e]x at the bottom of the bezel associates it with King Aethelwulf, ruler of Wessex from 839 to 858 (Fig. 4.1, right). The ring was not necessarily made for him to wear himself, but for him to give to a follower as a permanent reminder of the service owed to its donor, though a Beowulf seeking a ‘generous ring-giver’ might not have thought its inscription sufficient compensation for its modest weight. Alternatively, it could have acted like a seal, to accompany a royal messenger and validate that his news or instructions came from the king; or have been used as a guarantee of a land donation and a physical reminder of the event at which the grant had been made. That might have been the reason why the name of Queen Aethelswith was added to the back of another gold ring, thus associating it with Aethelwulf’s daughter, who was queen of Mercia from 853 to 874 (Fig. 4.1, left). The inscription may have been an afterthought, needed when the ring was used for an unanticipated purpose. A third explanation is that both rings were baptismal; above Aethelwulf’s name are two birds at the Fountain of Life, and the bezel of Aethelswith’s ring has the Lamb of St John the Baptist.

Searching for Fast Optical Transients using a Veritas Cherenkov Telescope

“…The device is hardware-limited to rates ≤ 400 MHz. ysis codes [5,6]. In our test we recorded time stamps from the host computer along with instantaneous rates from the central pixel and used them to barycentre the photons arrival times.…”

Effective Half-Life of Caesium-137 in Various Environmental Media at the Savannah River Site

“…137 Cs removal rates from Creek Plantation soils were substantially slower than from Par Pond sediments that were freshly exposed as a result of the previously described Par Pond drawdown. The exposure of these formerly submerged sediments may have resulted in comparatively rapid 137 Cs removal processes more characteristic of newly contaminated soils (e.g., erosion and leaching) than older contaminated soils (Hinton et al, 1999). Generally, Tes and Tcs for Creek Plantation floodplain soil and vegetation were somewhat longer than observed at most other locations.…”

Simulating the performance of the Southern Wide-view Gamma-ray Observatory

“…The outcome of the presented optimisation strategy will be used in the final design optimisation, which takes into account the constraints and exact properties of the proposed site of the observatory, as well as the decisions made on detector hardware implementation [18,19].…”