The purchase by Peabody Museum of an extremely valuable collection of ornaments and instruments known as the Mecklenburg Collection was announced yesterday by Hugh O. Hencken, curator of the Museum. The price paid for the collection although not divulged by the authorities, is estimated to be $10,000.

The instruments, which represent one-third of that the Duchess of Mecklenburg had found, is important archaeologically because it is the only scientifically excavated material ever taken out of the region of the Northern end of the Adriatic Sea. This area was wrecked archaeologically in the last century by unscientific excavations.

Notes on the excavation work which were written by Her Highness, the Duchess Paul Friedrich of Mecklenburg have also been bought by the museum. The collection itself consists of the contents of 350 graves from the cemetery of Magdalenaberg, which is in modern Jugoslavia and is now called Magdalenska Gora. It consists of four metal helmets showing various influences which affected the Illyrians, a bronze vase with animal friezes, pottery, swords, spears, knives and small bronze ornaments including many fibulae.