been the front part of a military helmet, or of a headpiece used for
display. Such a headpiece with similarly large and curving horns,
terminating in similar zoomorphic endings is seen (Fig. 94) on the head
of a warrior who appears to be engaged in mimic combat with another
accoutred as fantastically as himself, and whose grotesque headpiece
bears a resemblance still more remarkable to another bronze object of
the same character which I have next to describe. These representations
occur on a bronze plaque dug up in the island of Oland, and they have
therefore no necessary connection with the usages of the Celtic people.
They merely show that in assigning such a purpose to these objects we
are not attributing to them a purpose to which they were never applied.
But the special use of the object is really of no great moment for the
purpose of the present investigation. That purpose is fulfilled when we
are enabled to say, from an examination of its special characteristics,
that it has certain typical relations linking it with other objects,
forming a distinct group and occupying a definite place in the series of
types which characterise the area now termed Scotland. I therefore
proceed to the description of other objects distinguished by the same
characteristics.
[Illustration: Fig. 95.—Bronze object in the form of a swine’s head
found at Liechestown, Deskford, Banffshire (8½ inches in length).]]
At Liechestown, in the parish of Deskford, Banffshire, about the year
1816, a remarkable relic (Fig. 95), now in the Banff Museum, was found
in a mossy piece of ground, at a depth of about 6 feet, and resting on a
bed of clay at the bottom of the moss. This object, which is equally
peculiar alike in respect to its form and ornamentation, is in the shape
of a boar’s head of thin beaten bronze 8½ inches in length by 5½ in
greatest breadth. The lower jaw is movable. The eyes are circular holes
1¼ inch in diameter. The whole head is formed of four plates of bronze,
the snout, the palate, and the lower jaw (Fig. 96) having been each made
separately, and attached to the posterior part of the head, which
consists of an embossed plate bent to the shape. A disc-like plate,
which was found with it, is now attached to the open back of the head,
but does not quite fit, and it is doubtful whether it had been so placed
originally. The ornamentation of this singular object is of the same
character as that of the Torrs bronze, but simpler, being merely a
series of trumpet-shaped ridges in _repoussé_ work round the eyes. But
this ornament, simple as it is, is quite sufficient to determine the
relations of the relic to that general group of objects of which it and
the bronze from Torrs are the most remarkable specimens.
[Illustration: Fig. 96.—Plates of thin bronze forming separate parts of
the swine’s head. (2) The lower jaw. (3) The palate. (4 and 5) Posterior
and lateral views of the palate.]
[Illustration: Fig. 97.—Sword-sheath found near Mortonhall (23½ inches
long).]
It is obvious that if these objects had any relation to military
equipment, we ought to find the very peculiar art which is so
conspicuous in their decoration, also exhibiting itself in the
decoration of the weapons and other war-gear in use among the same
people. Diodorus, in fact, informs us that the Gauls used oblong shields
as tall as the man, and painted after a peculiar fashion. Some of these
shields, he also says, had figures of animals in relief of bronze, not
merely for ornament but also for defence, and very well wrought. It has
been already remarked that it is probable that the military equipment of
the Gallic tribes resembled that of the British; and it is the fact that
oblong shields, decorated with the peculiar patterns characteristic of
the style of art exhibited by the two headpieces which have been
described, having these patterns further adorned by coloured enamels,
and also possessing the distinctive feature of figures of animals in
relief in bronze, have been found in England.[57]
-----
Footnote 57:
A bronze shield, found in the river Witham, 3 feet 8½ inches long, and
nearly 14 inches wide, with straight sides and rounded ends, is
decorated with studs of red coral, and had the figure of an animal
attached to it by rivets. Another, found in the Thames, 2 feet 6½
inches long and 14½ inches wide, is ornamented with enamelled patterns
in this peculiar style, and of singular beauty and remarkable
excellence of design and workmanship. They are figured in colours of
the originals in the _Horæ Ferales_, edited by A. W. Franks, of the
British Museum (4to. London, 1863), Plates XIV.-XV.
-----
No shields of this character have yet been discovered in Scotland, but
there are other objects of a military kind which exhibit the same
peculiar art in a sufficiently characteristic manner. One of these is a
sword-sheath (Fig. 97) of bronze, 23½ inches in length by 1¼ inch in
width, which was found at the foot of the Pentlands, near Mortonhall,
and is now in the Museum. It is formed of thin beaten bronze; the
ornamental cup-shaped expansions at the lower end are solid castings,
and the ornamental strap carrying the loop in front is fastened on with
pins. The back of the sheath is a thin slip of bronze sliding in grooves
in the inner margins of the two sides. This is the only example of a
sword-sheath of this style and period known to have been found in
Scotland. Several sheaths of the same character have been discovered in
England. Perhaps the most characteristic of these is one in the
collection of Canon Greenwell at Durham, which exhibits, in a very
special manner, the peculiar style of ornament of which I have given so
many illustrations. The swords which these sheaths contained were of
iron and have perished. One found in the Thames has the blade still
within it, 3 feet 1½ inch in length, but a mere mass of oxide.[58] These
swords differ greatly in the length and form of the blade from the
leaf-shaped swords of bronze which were in general use at an earlier
period, and their sheaths differ still more widely in form and ornament
from the sheaths of the leaf-shaped swords.
-----
Footnote 58:
The specimens of these iron swords with bronze sheaths found in
different parts of England are enumerated by Mr. Franks in the
_Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London_, vol. iv. p.
166; and several are figured in _Horæ Ferales_, Plates XIV.-XVIII.
-----
Another class of objects, which are more of the nature of
harness-mountings or horse-furniture, also exhibit this peculiar style
of ornamentation, in some cases combined with the remarkable feature of
having their sunk spaces filled with coloured enamels.
[Illustration: Fig. 98.—Mountings of Cast Bronze (5 inches in length).]
A pair of massively-formed objects (Fig. 98), the precise use of which
is not apparent, were found in a bank of clay on a spur of the Cheviots
at Henshole on Cheviot. They are of cast bronze, and consist of an
oblong body, hollow, rounded at one end and flattened at the other; the
upper and lower surfaces inclined towards the small end, which is
narrower than the width at the middle. A stout tang of about 2 inches in
length is carried on a bar which crosses the open part of the small end,
and the convexity of the larger end bears the mark of hammering as if to
drive the tang home. They are destitute of surface decoration, but they
seem to be allied by the characteristics of their form to other objects
which are less indefinite in the indications of their art.
[Illustration: Fig. 99.—Bronze Ornaments found in a Cairn at Towie,
Aberdeenshire.]
In a large cairn on the farm of Hillock Head, in the parish of Towie,
Aberdeenshire, which covered an interment placed in a cist with an urn,
there were found a number of bronze objects, all of which were lost
except two (Fig. 99), which are now in the Museum. They are in the form
of oval hollow rings, expanding on the inferior side, and having an oval
opening in the under part, which shows the remains of an iron pin
fastened at each side of the opening with lead. Their general appearance
is suggestive of the mountings of horse-harness, but their precise
purpose is not obvious, and the articles found in association with them
are undescribed. Although the testimony is singularly defective on that
point, it is not probable that they had any connection with the
interment in the “short cist” which contained bones and an
[Illustration: Fig. 100.—Mounting in Cast Bronze from Dowalton Loch (2
inches in diameter).] urn. A similar object in bronze, also presenting
the remains of iron fastenings in the lower part, was found under a
large stone on the hill of Crichie, near Kintore, along with a number of
globular balls of shale each about 1¼ inch in diameter, slightly
flattened on one side, and having the remains of iron loop-like
fastenings in the flattened side.[59] A number of rings and
harness-mountings found at Middleby, in Annandale, in 1737, and now
preserved in Penicuick House, exhibit the same style of decoration in a
more pronounced and characteristic manner.[60]
-----
Footnote 59:
_Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot._, vol. v. p. 111.
Footnote 60:
They have been figured by Dr. Daniel Wilson in _The Prehistoric Annals
of Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 156.
-----
A mounting in cast bronze (Fig. 100), 2 inches diameter, the sunk spaces
of which had probably been filled with enamels, was recently found in
the dry bed of the loch of Dowalton, which was drained about eighteen
years ago. It is formed of a combination of segmental spaces, the curves
of which are those of the divergent spiral, each space being surrounded
by a raised border, and the sunk surfaces roughened with a tool.
[Illustration: Fig. 101.—Bridle-bit found in a Moss at Birrenswark,
Dumfriesshire (6¾ inches in length).]
A bridle-bit (Fig. 101), found in a moss at Birrenswark, in Annandale,
before 1785, and now in the National Museum, exhibits the
characteristics of this peculiar phase of art in a very striking manner.
It is no less peculiar in its design and construction than in the
character of its ornamentation. It is a single casting of bronze. The
loops of the cheek-rings have been cast within the loops of the
centre-piece, an operation implying technical skill and experience of
complicated processes of moulding and casting. The design, however, is
the most remarkable feature of the object. It is designed as carefully
as if it were a piece of jewellery. The rings, though cast in one piece
with the loops, are penannular in form, grasping the neck of the loop
between their expanded ends. The two rings differ slightly in size, and
the loops differ greatly in form. The one is treated as a loop formed of
a cylindrical rod bent to the shape of a loop, and carrying the
ornamented open-work of its terminal part as between its extended ends.
The other loop is treated as a solid form, and in its ornamental
termination there is no open work. The two rings are similar, but not
identical. The idea of openness suggested by the modelling of the one
loop is carried into the construction of the terminal portions as open
work, and the idea of solidity is similarly carried out in the other
loop. The surface decoration of the terminal portions of the loops is of
the same character in the parts of both that are similar, and is partly
carried also into the parts of the one which are wanting in the other.
It consists of red and yellow enamel _champléve_, the colours
alternating in alternate rows of triangular and oval spaces. A double
spiral and trumpet pattern appears in the open work of the one loop. The
loops and rings are greatly the worse for wear, and have been
strengthened by thin pieces riveted on.
It is certainly a peculiar feature of an art so singularly decorative
that it was applied so largely to the ornamentation of objects that were
appropriated to the commonest uses. Enamelled horse-trappings of the
most finished and beautiful workmanship have frequently been found in
England, sometimes associated with the remains of chariots.[61] Not only
is the use of enamel in the decoration of such objects unknown beyond
the area of the British Isles, but the special system of design which
accompanies its use is also confined within that area. And it is an
interesting fact that there is historical evidence as to the nationality
of these remains. The only classical author who mentions the art of
enamelling is Philostratus, a Greek sophist in the household of Julia
Domna, wife of the Emperor Severus. In a notice of the variegated
trappings of the horses in a painting of a boar-hunt he accounts for
their peculiar appearance as follows:—“They say that the barbarians who
live in the Ocean pour such colours on heated brass, and that they
adhere to it, become as hard as stone, and thus preserve the designs
that are made in them.” It is matter of inference what people they were
who are thus styled “barbarians in the ocean,” but it is matter of fact
that horse-trappings of bronze (or brass) decorated with coloured
enamels have hitherto been found in the British Islands alone.
-----
Footnote 61:
They have been found at Polden Hill, near Bridgewater (_Archæologia_,
vol. xiv. p. 90); at Hagbourn Hill, Berkshire (_Archæologia_, vol.
xvi. p. 348); at Stanwick, Yorkshire, with chariot-wheels (York Volume
of the Archæological Institute, p. 10); at Arras and Hessleskew, in
the same county, with chariot-wheels and the bones of horses (_Ibid._
p. 28), and other places. A synopsis of the whole group of objects
characterised by this decoration is given by Mr. Franks in _Horæ
Ferales_ (4to., London, 1863), pp. 172, 196, and many figures in the
coloured plates (Plates XIV.-XX.).
-----
But this peculiar style of art was not confined to the decoration of
such objects as parts of military equipments or harness of horses. It
was largely employed in the decoration of personal ornaments and objects
of personal use.
[Illustration: Fig. 102.—Quern Stone of sandstone found at Balmaclellan
(14 inches in diameter).]
In the parish of Balmaclellan, in Kirkcudbright, a number of bronze
articles were found in draining a bog. It is stated that they were found
about 3 feet under the surface in four parcels, each wrapped in coarse
linen cloth. Close by them the upper stone of a quern was also found.
The quern stone (Fig. 102) is ornamented, but the ornament possesses
none of the distinctive features of the decoration of the bronzes. They
consisted of a circular mirror with handle, and a number of thin plates
of bronze, some being long narrow bands, others curved and cut into
various shapes. The mirror (Fig. 103) is of the form so commonly seen on
the sculptured monuments of the Celtic Christian time in Scotland. The
circular part is 8 inches in diameter, and the handle 5 inches in
projection from the circumference of the circular part. [Illustration:
Fig. 103.—Bronze Mirror found at Balmaclellan (8 inches in diameter)]
The body of the mirror is a thin plate of bronze, surrounded by a
plain-rolled edging. The handle, which is also a thin plate of bronze
similarly edged, is attached to the circular plate by rivets, and the
junction is concealed by a finely-ornamented plate (Fig. 104),
presenting a pattern composed of those peculiar raised surfaces formed
by the meeting of curves rising from the flat at different angles, and
traversing the ground also in curves, which converge and diverge in a
manner pleasing to the eye, but difficult to describe. The upper part of
this ornamental plate is tri-lobate, the lobes bounded by curves of
peculiar form, and bordered by an edging of studs embossed on the metal.
[Illustration: Fig. 104.—Ornamental Plate of thin bronze, embossed, at
the junction of the mirror with its handle (actual size).] The central
ornament of each lobe is a circular device, with a central boss
surrounded by a circle of oval-raised surfaces, and presenting a nearer
approach to the effect of a floral decoration than is usually seen in
this style of ornament. The handle of the mirror is pierced with three
segmental openings formed of the curves of the divergent spiral. A
crescentic collar-shaped plate of bronze (Fig. 105), 13 inches in
diameter, and 2 inches in the width of the band, is decorated with a
chased pattern of similarly convergent and divergent curves, the spaces
enclosed by the curves being hatched with parallel lines. [Illustration:
Fig. 105.—Half of the Crescentic Collar-like Plate of Bronze found with
the Mirror at Balmaclellan.] The remaining plates (Fig. 106), of which
there are a considerable number, are of various forms. Some have
straight outer edges, and the interior edges cut into curves, meeting
each other with long and short points; others are triangular pieces,
with one convex and two concave edges, while others again are long
narrow bands with straight edges. They are all bordered with an edging
of thin metal doubled over and pinned on, and they seem themselves to
have been attached by pins to some object of a more perishable nature.
What their precise purpose was—whether they were mountings on wood or
leather, or whether they formed parts of some object constructed wholly
of thin plates of metal (as the two objects previously described are
constructed)—it is not necessary to conjecture since the form and
condition of the objects themselves give no definite indications on
these points. Their being wrapped in cloth in separate parcels may imply
that they are not all parts of the same object, and their local
association with objects of such incongruous purposes, as a mirror and a
quern, may imply that they were not necessarily even associated with
each other when in use. There is no evidence that the deposit was in any
way connected with sepulture, although the mirror of this form, and
bearing precisely the same kind of ornamentation, has been found
associated with interments of Pagan time in Britain.
[Illustration: Fig. 104.—Ornamental Plate of thin bronze, embossed, at
the junction of the mirror with its handle (actual size).]
[Illustration: Fig. 105.—Half of the Crescentic Collar-like Plate of
Bronze found with the Mirror at Balmaclellan.]
[Illustration: Fig. 106.—Form of the Bronze Plates found with the Mirror
at Balmaclellan (26 inches in length).]
At Mount Batten, near Plymouth, a series of graves were discovered in
1865,[62] which presented phenomena of a very peculiar character. They
were pits 4 or 4½ feet in depth, one foot of which only was soil, the
remaining three feet being sunk in the disintegrated surface of the
underlying rock. They were very numerous, sometimes close together and
irregular in form, and had mostly been refilled with the materials
removed in making them. They contained fragments of pottery of black and
yellow ware, and wheel-made. Some fragments of glass vessels, portions
of iron implements, among which were a pair of shears, bronze rings and
fibulæ, and jointed armlets of bronze, with a knife or dagger in a
sheath of thin bronze, were also found. But the most interesting part of
the discovery was the circular plate of a bronze mirror (Fig. 107), 8
inches in diameter, which lay on its face at the bottom of one of the
graves. It is a very thin plate of bronze, with a rolled edging. The
back is ornamented with three circular engraved patterns of spirals
formed of the same peculiar curves, converging and diverging, the spaces
between the lines forming the curves being filled with hatching. So
closely do the patterns resemble those on the collar-like object from
Balmaclellan, and so similar is the style of the work, that the
conclusion is unavoidable that the two objects belong to the same school
of art, and cannot be very far apart in time.
[Illustration: Fig. 107.—Bronze Mirror found in a grave at Mount Batten,
Plymouth (8 inches in diameter).]
-----
Footnote 62:
Described in a paper by Mr. Spence Bate in _Archæologia_, vol. xl. p.
500.
-----
Another mirror, which is almost precisely similar in form and
ornamentation, was found in 1833 at Trelan Bahow,[63] in the parish of
St. Keverne, Cornwall. In the course of the construction of a new road a
group of graves was discovered. Each grave was formed of six slabs set
on edge, two forming each side of the grave, and one at each end. They
were from two to three feet under the surface, and covered with large
stones. In one of the cists, apparently with the remains of a female,
there were found the bronze mirror almost perfect, some rings of bronze
or brass, fragments of fibulæ, and other personal ornaments, and several
beads of variegated glass. The mirror is circular, 6 inches in diameter,
with a looped handle 2½ inches in length. The back of the mirror plate
has a marginal ornament of triangular spaces alternately plain, and
filled with short parallel lines struck by a punch. Across the central
line of the mirror are two circles enclosing smaller circles and
curvilinear spaces alternately plain, and filled with punched lines in a
style similar to that of the ornament on the collar-like object from
Balmaclellan.
-----
Footnote 63:
_Archæological Journal_, vol. xxx. p. 268.
-----
[Illustration: Fig. 108.—Back of a Bronze Mirror found in a grave at
Birdlip, near Gloucester (10⅝ inches in diameter).]
Another mirror of the same character, found at Birdlip on the edge of
the Cottiswold Hills, near Gloucester, in 1879,[64] exhibits the same
style of ornamentation. Three cists were discovered in a group,
containing skeletons placed with their feet to the south. The first and
third were apparently adult males, and with them no manufactured objects
were found. The second was apparently a female. On the face of the
skeleton was placed a large bronze bowl, 9 inches in diameter, inverted;
and among the other contents of the cist were a smaller bowl of bronze,
4 inches in diameter, a harp-shaped fibula of silver plated with gold, a
bracelet and four rings of brass, a key-handle, a knife-handle
terminating in the head of an animal, a string of large beads of jet and
amber, and a mirror made of a massive bronze plate, weighing 38¼ ounces.
The back of the mirror (Fig. 108), which is of a slightly oval form,
measures 10⅝ inches in its greatest, and 9¾ inches in its least,
diameter, and is beautifully ornamented with a triple scroll-like
pattern of flowing curvilinear spaces filled with hatchings of short
lines in chequers, or groups disposed at right angles to each other. The
pattern is so managed that the hatched spaces and the plain spaces
alternate and form symmetrical arrangements, producing a pleasing
effect. At the lower part, where the handle supports the mirror, is a
triple arrangement of trumpet-shaped scrolls in relief, enclosing spaces
which are similarly decorated. The handle is elegantly formed from a
prolongation of the marginal beading of the mirror, which gradually
thickens towards the lower margin to trumpet-shaped endings on either
side of the handle, which takes the form of a double-loop, drawn out
from the marginal bead, and terminating in a ring partly filled by an
ornamented disc.
-----
Footnote 64:
_Proceedings of the Bristol and Gloucester Archæological Society_,
vol. v. p. 137, and Plate XIV., from which the figure here given is
copied by permission.
-----
These mirrors all differ in their form and in the composition of the
metal from Roman mirrors, and they differ in certain characteristics of
their ornament still more widely from the Roman style. But the peculiar
characteristics which form the special features of their decoration are
identical with those of a large class of objects which we have now
learned to recognise by the character of their art as distinctively
Celtic.
[Illustration: Fig. 109.—Bronze Spoon-like object (one of a pair) found
at Weston, near Bath (actual size).]