Description (Physical description)
Glass fragment.
Event Date
Author: maa

Context (Related Documents)
Handwritten note reads: '"The late F.J.H Jenkison told me this was from a window urn" Cyril Fox 3.5.24. March 1881 "bit of glass said to have been found IN one of the Saxon cinerary urns" Von Hügel.'
Event Date
Author: Lily Stancliffe

Context (Related Documents)
Old label with object reads: "Piece of glass forming the window of a window urn" [transcribed 29/3/2001]
Event Date
Author: Lily Stancliffe

Description (Physical description)
Catalogue card description: 'Glass found in urn. 1881. "bit of glass said to have been found IN one of the Saxon cinerary urns." Von Huegel [sic].'
Event Date
Author: Lily Stancliffe

Context (Found together / assemblage)
The card has the following entry: "bit of glass said to have been found in one of the Saxon cinerary urns"
Event Date
Author: maa

Context (Found together / assemblage)
This appears to be the glass from the window urn referred to by Jenkinson during his account of his excavation presented to the Cambridge Antiquarian Society on 8 May 1882. In the report, he notes that 'One [urn] had been made with a square piece of thick glass in the bottom, for what purpose was not known: a similar one, but smaller, had been procured from Haslingfield by Mr. Walter K. Foster. The glass when looked through had a grannular appearance, which might be due to the changes of temperature when the urn was being baked and again when the hot ashes were placed in contact with it. There was nothing remarkable in the position of this urn, which had lost all the upper portion' (p. li). Hollingworth and O'Reilly note that 'the MS notes give no account of [the discovery of this urn], although it was mentioned in the Report to the CAS. Apparently this window-urn was broken either in course of excavation or immediately after, as no trace of it apart from the glass fragment has ever been found' (p. 24).
Event Date 1881
Author: Imogen Gunn (admin)

Context (References)
Jenkinson, Francis. (1884). ‘Report and Communications’. Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, vol. 5(2). pp. li-lii
Event Date 1884
Author: Imogen Gunn (admin)

Context (References)
Fox, C., The Archaeology of the Cambridge Region', Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1923. p.248, fig 4B, plate XXXII.
Event Date 1923
Author: Lily Stancliffe

Context (References)
Hollingworth, Edith Joan, and Maureen M. O'Reilly. (1925). The Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Girton College, Cambridge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 24
Event Date 1925
Author: Lily Stancliffe

Context (Amendments / updates)
The database record gave the Source as Anatole von Hügel, but the Accession Register entry gives the find date as 1881 and the Source as 'Jenkinson Collection'. It was Francis Jenkinson who excavated at Girton in 1881, whereas von Hügel excavated later in 1886. The Source field has therefore been updated to remove von Hügel and add Jenkinson.
Event Date 11/11/2020
Author: Imogen Gunn

Context (Analysis)
Possibly repurposed Roman vessel glass.
Event Date 19/11/2020
Author: Lily Stancliffe

Description (Physical description)
Fragment of thin blue glass from a window urn. The fragment has a regular cross-section and curve with evidence of grozing to shape the straight edges and two chipped sections on one side.
Event Date 19/11/2020
Author: Lily Stancliffe