TORQUES, BRACELETS, RINGS, EAR-RINGS, AND PERSONAL ORNAMENTS.
ALTHOUGH some of the pins described in the last chapter were destined
for ornament rather than for use, they cannot as a class be regarded
as purely ornamental. The collars and armlets, to which the present
chapter is to be devoted, must, I think, be considered as essentially
ornaments, though possibly in some cases affording protection to the
neck and arms. The modern epaulette was originally intended for the
protection of the shoulder, though now, as a rule, little better than
an ornament.
The torque, or torc, takes its name from the Latin _torques_, which
again is derived _à torquendo_. This word _torques_ was applied to a
twisted collar of gold or other metal worn around the neck. Among the
ancient Gauls gold torques appear to have been abundant, and to have
formed an important part of the spoils acquired from them by their
Roman conquerors. About 223 B.C.,[1446] when Flaminius Nepos gained his
victory over the Gauls on the Addua, it is related that instead of the
Gauls dedicating, as they had intended, a torque made from the spoils
of the Roman soldiers to their god of war, Flaminius erected to Jupiter
a golden trophy made from the Gaulish _torques_. The name of the
Torquati, a family of the Manlia Gens, was derived from their ancestor,
T. Manlius,[1447] having in B.C. 361 slain a gigantic Gaul in single
combat, whose torque he took from the dead body after cutting off the
head, and placed it around his own neck.
On some of the denarii of the Manlia family[1448] the torque forms a
circle round the head of Rome on the obverse. Two interesting papers
“On the Torc of the Celts,” by Dr. Samuel Birch, will be found in the
_Archæological Journal_.[1449]
Although these gold torques in many instances undoubtedly belong to
the Bronze Period, they are sufficiently well known to antiquaries to
render it needless for me here to enter into any minute description
of them. The commonest form presents a cruciform section, so that
the twist is that of a four-threaded screw, and at either end there
is a plain, nearly cylindrical bar, turned back so as to form a kind
of hook. I have a fine example of this kind of torque, found with a
bronze anvil (Fig. 217) and other bronze instruments and weapons at
Fresné la Mère, Calvados. A similar but smaller gold torque was found
near Boyton, Suffolk,[1450] which is said to have had the extremities
secured together by two small penannular rings of gold, embracing the
two terminal hooks.
[Illustration: Fig. 466.—Wedmore. ½]
One 42 inches long was found on Cader Idris;[1451] others in
Glamorganshire;[1452] at Pattingham, Staffordshire;[1453] and in
several other parts of Britain. Some fine examples of these funicular
torques of gold, as well as of other varieties of the same kind of
ornament, are in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy at Dublin.[1454]
The torques formed of bronze are, as a rule, thicker and bulkier in
their proportions than those of gold, and the ends are usually left
straight or but slightly hooked over so as to interlock. They are never
provided with the projecting cylindrical ends already mentioned.
[Illustration: Fig. 467.—Wedmore. ½]
The form most frequently discovered in the British Islands is that
known as funicular, one of which is shown in Fig. 466, copied from the
_Archæological Association Journal_.[1455]
The original was found with two others at Wedmore, Somersetshire. One
of these is of the same type, but of smaller size, and not quite so
closely twisted, as shown in Fig. 467; and the other is made of a flat
ribbon of metal, ⅜ inch broad, twisted, as shown in Fig. 469, which is
copied from the same plate as Figs. 466 and 467.
From another account of these torques,[1456] it appears that they were
found near Heath House, in the parish of Wedmore, and that with them
were two celts and a few amber beads strung on a wire. This latter,
to me, sounds doubtful, as the wire is probably a later addition. The
weight of the largest is said to be ½ pound, of the second 2 ounces,
and of the smallest 1½ ounce.
Another torque of the character of Fig. 466, about 9 inches in
diameter, was found with a bracelet, Fig. 481, and a two-looped
palstave, Fig. 87, at West Buckland, Somersetshire,[1457] and is in
the collection of Mr. W. A. Sanford. It is shown on the scale of
one-third in Fig. 468.
A portion of another torque, but of slender make, was found at Pen
Pits,[1458] in the same county; and another, somewhat imperfect, near
Edington Burtle.[1459] With the latter was a portion of a ribbon
torque like Fig. 469, two bracelets, some rings, and four palstaves.
Two very fine torques, like Fig. 468, 8¾ inches in diameter, were also
found in Somersetshire on the Quantock Hills,[1460] in 1794. Within
each of them is said to have been placed a looped palstave, like Fig.
77. The weight of one of the torques is reported to have been nearly 2
pounds.
[Illustration: Fig. 468.—West Buckland. ⅓]
In the collection of the Rev. E. Duke, of Lake House, near Salisbury,
are two fine torques of this kind, one large and heavy, and the other
smaller and more slender, which were found near Amesbury. With them
were several spiral rings closely resembling Fig. 489.
Two others found with armillæ in Dorsetshire[1461] are now in the
British Museum. The larger of these is closely twisted, and about 7½
inches in diameter. The smaller is thicker, and shows a coarser twist,
and is about 6⅜ inches in diameter. The armillæ are penannular and of
rhomboidal section.
Two small torques, some bronze rings or bracelets, and a palstave
are recorded to have been dug up in Woolmer Forest, Hants.[1462] Two
spiral rings were found with them.
In the collection of Mr. Durden, at Blandford, are several specimens
found at Spetisbury, Dorset.[1463]
I have a thin torque about 6¼ inches in diameter, but unfortunately
broken, found in Burwell Fen, Cambridgeshire.
[Illustration: Fig. 469.—Wedmore. ½]
In some instances the plain ends of the torque are left without hooks.
Such is the case with the fine collar found, with four looped armlets
and a palstave without loop, at Hollingbury Hill,[1464] near Brighton,
which is now in the British Museum. On each extremity was a spiral
ring of bronze, considerably larger than the rod forming the torque,
and a third ring is shown in the published drawing. The palstave,
which is broken in the middle, apparently on purpose, lay within the
circle of the torque, which also was broken across the middle. At
regular intervals round it lay the four bracelets, which resemble Fig.
482, and vary somewhat in weight.
The third of the torques already mentioned as found at Wedmore is
shown in Fig. 469.
It is of a type which occurs more frequently in gold than in bronze,
and in the former metal has often been found in Scotland. Several
such were discovered under a large stone at Urquhart, Elginshire.
Others have been found at Culter, Lanarkshire;[1465] Belhelvie,
Aberdeenshire; Little Lochbroom, Ross-shire; Rannoch, Perthshire; and
elsewhere. Some of these are in the Antiquarian Museum at Edinburgh.
There are three or four such in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy.
A gold torque of this class found at Clonmacnoise,[1466] King’s
County, has oval balls at each end instead of hooks.
So far as at present known, the funicular torques of bronze are more
abundant in the southern and western counties than in the other parts
of England. They appear to be unknown both in Scotland and Ireland,
though torques of Late Celtic patterns occur in those countries.
[Illustration: Fig. 470.—Yarnton. ½]
The inference is that, although socketed celts are rarely if ever found
with them, these twisted neck-rings belong to the close of the Bronze
Period, and were introduced into Britain from the Continent. The form
is, however, rare in the North of France, and the nearest analogues to
the English torques with which we are acquainted are to be seen among
those from Northern Germany and Denmark.
The Danish form, with broad expanding ends terminating in spirals,
and the derivatives from it in which the spirals are represented by
solid cast plates with volutes upon them, are nevertheless unknown in
Britain, as is also that with the twist alternately to the right and to
the left.
Another form of bronze torque found in Britain is made from a
plain piece of wire, hammered out at each end into a broad, nearly
quadrangular, plate.
That shown in Fig. 470 lay near the head of a contracted skeleton at
Yarnton, four miles from Oxford, at a spot which seems to have been a
prehistoric cemetery. I obtained it through the kindness of Professor
Rolleston when visiting the place. The ends are ornamented by hammer
marking. In a line with the wire forming the torque is a slightly
raised flat band perpendicularly fluted; the expanding parts above and
below are fluted horizontally. A herald would engrave “azure, a fesse
gules” in the same manner, but with the lines much closer together.
Two torques of the same character, found at Lumphanan, Aberdeenshire,
are in the Antiquarian Museum at Edinburgh.
The form probably belongs to the close of the Bronze Period, if not
indeed to the Late Celtic or Early Iron Age.
[Illustration: Fig. 471.—Montgomeryshire. ⅔]
A torque about 5 inches in diameter, described as of copper, made
of a simple wire, with the ends turned back so as to form hooks,
and on each a lenticular button of metal, was found near Winslow,
Bucks,[1467] and may also be Late Celtic.
Another form of torque is made from a stout wire expanding into small
flat discs at the end, a type which is also common among bracelets
both in bronze and gold. A torque of this kind, together with a
bracelet, is shown in Fig. 471, kindly lent by the Council of the
Society of Antiquaries.
These objects were found with seven others in the parish of
Llanrhaiadaryn-Mochnant, Montgomeryshire.[1468] One of them is said
to have had pendants upon it. Several of them were too small to have
served as torques for the neck, and were most probably bracelets or
anklets. To these penannular ornaments I shall have to refer further
on.
The other varieties of torques found in Britain seem decidedly to
belong to the Late Celtic rather than to the Bronze Period, so that
a brief notice of them will suffice. They are frequently made in two
halves, hinged or dowelled together, and are often decorated with a
series of ornamental beads.
A collar found in Lochar Moss, Dumfriesshire, is now in the British
Museum.[1469] About one-third of it is formed by a solid piece of
bronze of flat section, having the face ornamented with a peculiar
wavy pattern and the outer rim with cabled lines. The rest consists of
fluted melon-like beads with pulley-shaped collars between them. They
appear to have been strung on an iron wire.
A portion of another collar found at Perdeswell,[1470] Claines, near
Worcester, has the iron wire still preserved. The ornamental beads are
flatter, with leaf-shaped projections upon them, and between them are
smaller pulley-like beads.
Another, formed in much the same fashion as that from Lochar Moss, was
found at Mow-road, Rochdale, Lancashire.[1471] This was in halves,
dowelled together with iron pins.
Another, entirely of bronze, is made in two pieces, one part
resembling a row of beads, the other engraved like a closely plaited
cord, and was found at Embsay, near Skipton, Yorkshire.[1472]
A torque, weighing no less than 3 lbs. 10 ozs. avoirdupois, was found
in the parish of Wraxall, Somerset.[1473] This also is in halves,
with pins to form the joint. It is described as appearing to have
been adorned with precious stones. Possibly, like some other objects
of Late Celtic manufacture, it may have been inlaid with enamel of
different colours.
Bracelets of the same type as the torque and bracelet shown in Fig. 471
have not unfrequently been found in Britain, though, perhaps, they are
less common in bronze than in the more precious metal, gold.
They are sometimes slightly hollowed at the expanding ends. One found
with the hoard at Marden, Kent,[1474] is of this kind. Another plain
penannular bracelet tapers off at the ends instead of expanding. This
latter is too small for an adult person.
One found, with various other bronze relics, at Ty Mawr, on Holyhead
Mountain,[1475] expands at one end and tapers at the other. As is
often the case, the inner side of the ring is flatter than the outer.
One, 2⅜ inches by 2 inches inside, expanding at each end, was in the
Heathery Burn Cave hoard. Some others were also found there.
In some instances the section of the metal, instead of being rounded,
is nearly square. Two such, tapering towards the ends, were found in
Dorsetshire,[1476] with the torques already mentioned, and are now in
the British Museum.
Three plain penannular bracelets were in the hoard of palstaves and
socketed celts found at Wallington, Northumberland.
Several have been found in Scotland. Two such bracelets, the
one slender and the other thick, were found at Achtertyre,
Morayshire,[1477] in company with a socketed celt, a spear-head, Fig.
383, another spear-head, and some fragments of other bracelets and of
tin. One of these is shown full-size in Fig. 472.
[Illustration: Fig. 472.—Achtertyre. 1/1]
Another, 2½ inches in greatest diameter, slightly thickened at the
extremities, was found in a peat moss at Conage, Banffshire.[1478]
Other penannular armlets, one of which is shown as Fig. 473, were
found with socketed celts at Redhill, Premnay, Aberdeenshire,[1479]
and are now in the Antiquarian Museum at Edinburgh; as is another
found with burnt bones near Preston Tower, East Lothian.
[Illustration: Fig. 473.—Redhill. 1/1]
This very simple penannular form of bracelet is found all over the
world, and is indeed the form of necessity adopted wherever it became
the fashion to wear thick metal wire round the arm. It was common
among the ancient Assyrians, and several bronze bracelets of this
form from Tel Sifr, in South Babylonia, are in the British Museum.
The hammered copper bracelets of North America[1480] are usually
penannular.
Two very massive penannular armlets, formed of rounded bronze fully ½
inch in diameter, and weighing about 12 ozs. each, were found with an
agate bead and a spindle-whorl in a tumulus near Peninnis Head, in the
Scilly Isles.[1481] One of these is shown in Fig. 474.
An imperfect armlet of thick bronze wire was found in a barrow at
Wetton,[1482] by the late Mr. Bateman.
Four plain armillæ of bronze found with the spiral ring, Fig. 489, and
with a palstave, in Woolmer Forest, Hants, are also in the Bateman
Collection.[1483] As already mentioned, two small torques and a celt
are said to have been found with them.[1484]
[Illustration: Fig. 474.—Scilly. ½]
[Illustration: Fig. 475.—Liss. ½]
Ornamented bracelets, such as have been found in abundance in the
Swiss Lake-dwellings, and such as are common in most continental
countries, are scarce in Britain.
In the British Museum are two bracelets, slightly oval in section,
and engraved with parallel lines, chevrons, &c., as will be seen by
Fig. 475. They were found at Liss, Hampshire. Though the two ends are
brought more closely together than usual in continental examples, the
general character of these bracelets is much like that of some French
and German specimens. The _patina_ upon them closely resembles that on
the celt Fig. 17, also found at Liss; so they were probably deposited
together.
A curious penannular armlet with flat broad ends, and ornamented with
punctured markings, was found with another armlet of smaller diameter,
but plain, more massive, and broader, together with the remains of
a skeleton, at Stoke Prior,[1485] Worcestershire. It is now in the
British Museum, and is represented in Fig. 476. It may belong to a
later period than that of which I am treating, and is possibly Saxon.
[Illustration: Fig. 476.—Stoke Prior. ½]
Fig. 477, kindly lent by the Council of the Society of Antiquaries
of Scotland, shows another form of armlet, made from a bar of nearly
semicircular section, bent into a circular form. The original,
together with another of the same kind, were found near Stobo
Castle,[1486] Peeblesshire, beneath a flat stone, and lying on a large
boulder, under which was a collection of small stones, burnt and with
apparently calcined bones among them.
[Illustration: Fig. 477.—Stobo Castle. 1/1]
Another armlet (3 inches) of the same type was found with an urn
containing burnt bones in a cairn in the parish of Lanark.[1487] A
bronze spear-head is stated to have been found with it.
One of the bracelets from the find at Camenz,[1488] in Saxony, is of
nearly the same type.
Two circular armlets, one with the ends slightly apart, were found in
Dorsetshire, one in the parish of Milton.[1489] I have an imperfect
armlet of this kind, found with a palstave, at Winterhay Green,
Ilminster, Somerset.
A penannular armlet of bronze, with compressed oval knobs at the
extremities, was found by Mr. F. C. Lukis, with a jet armlet, in the
cromlech of _La Roche qui sonne_,[1490] in Guernsey, and is shown
in Fig. 478. The scale has been said to be one-third, though from
information kindly furnished to me by the Rev. W. C. Lukis, F.S.A., it
appears to be one-half.
A somewhat different and more elegantly ornamented armlet from
Cornwall[1491] is shown in Fig. 479.
[Illustration: Fig. 478.—Guernsey. ½]
[Illustration: Fig. 479.—Cornwall. ½]
A bronze armilla, made from a flat ribbon of metal, ½ inch broad,
and ornamented outside with a neatly engraved lozengy pattern, was
found with an interment in a barrow at Castern,[1492] near Wetton,
Staffordshire.
Another, about 1½ inch wide, ornamented with four parallel bands of
vertical lines, with chevrons at the end, was found in a barrow at
Normanton,[1493] Wilts, encircling the arm of a skeleton, and is shown
in Fig. 480. In this example the ends overlap.
[Illustration: Fig. 480.—Normanton. ⅔]
Another, with a series of small longitudinal beads or mouldings upon
it, was found near Lake, Wilts, and is in the collection of the Rev.
E. Duke. Some plain penannular bracelets from that district are in the
same collection.
An armlet of nearly the same character, but narrower, was found in
Thor’s Cave,[1494] near Wetton, Derbyshire. Remains of Late Celtic and
of Roman date were found in the same cave.
A fluted bracelet was found with rings and other objects at Edington
Burtle, Somersetshire.[1495]
A bracelet of bronze, of which some of the fragments are represented
in Fig. 481, was found with a bronze torque and a two-looped palstave
at West Buckland,[1496] Somersetshire. It is flat on the inside,
so that the ornaments appear to have been cast in a mould, though
subsequently the more delicate work was added by means of punches or
gravers.
[Illustration: Fig. 481.—West Buckland. ½]
Another form of bracelet, probably of earlier date than some of
those represented in the previous figures, is of the type shown in
Fig. 482. It consists of a long bar of bronze, either circular or
subquadrangular in section, doubled over so as to leave a broad loop
in the middle, and then curved round so as to form the bracelet, the
two ends of the bar being bent over to form a hook, which engages
in the central loop. That shown in the figure was formerly in the
collection of the late Sir Walter Trevelyan, and is now in the
British Museum. As will be seen, the edges are in some parts minutely
serrated. The original was discovered with two others, and a ring of
the same metal, in a moss at Ham Cross, near Crawley, Sussex.
[Illustration: Fig. 482.—Ham Cross. ½]
[Illustration: Fig. 483.—Heathery Burn. ½]
Four others, forming two pairs, neatly placed round a torque, were
found at Hollingbury Hill,[1497] near Brighton, as already described.
They are now in the British Museum. I have seen two others of the same
kind which were found at Pyecombe, Sussex. They are in the collection
of Mrs. Dickinson, of Hurstpierpoint. Another was found in a barrow
near Brighton,[1498] with the long pin already mentioned, and is
now at Alnwick Castle. This was slightly ornamented with a kind of
herring-bone pattern.
Bracelets constructed on the same principle are sometimes formed of
much thinner wire. One from the Heathery Burn Cave,[1499] already so
often mentioned, is shown in Fig. 483.
Another of the same size and character, but made of even thinner wire,
was found with a bronze razor, a button, and other antiquities, in the
bed of a stream near Llangwyllog Church,[1500] Anglesea. These objects
are now in the British Museum. The type is not confined to Britain,
for a bracelet clasping in the same manner was found in the Lac du
Bourget.[1501]
Penannular bracelets, like Fig. 473, with the ends slightly expanding,
have been not unfrequently found in Ireland. One engraved by
Wilde[1502] is described as of pure red copper.
In many there are large cup-shaped ends at about right angles to each
other. One from Co. Cavan is shown in Fig. 484. I have another of the
same type, but much smaller and lighter, from Ballymoney, Co. Antrim.
[Illustration: Fig. 484.—Co. Cavan. ½]
[Illustration: Fig. 485.—Cowlam. 1/1]
They much resemble the manillas or ring-money in use on the West
Coast of Africa, but are more cup-shaped at the ends. It appears
possible that, like some large Irish rings which will subsequently be
described, they are not actually bracelets. The other armillæ engraved
by Wilde appear to be of later date than the Bronze Period. The same
may be said of the elegant bracelet shown full size in Fig. 485, which
is certainly Late Celtic. It was found by Canon Greenwell, F.R.S.,
on the right arm of a female skeleton in a barrow at Cowlam,[1503]
Yorkshire, and is similar to some found at Arras,[1504] in the same
county.
Another somewhat plainer bracelet, with a short dowel at one end,
fitting into a socket at the other, so as to form an almost invisible
joint, was found with a fibula, Fig. 498, on the skeleton of an aged
woman in another of the Cowlam[1505] barrows, and is shown in Fig. 486.
Another bronze armlet of the same period was found in a barrow in
the parish of Crosby Garrett,[1506] Westmoreland. It encircled the
right arm of a skeleton, and is penannular, “oval in section, and
unornamented, except in having a series of notches along both edges.”
Many bracelets of Late Celtic date have been found at various times
in Scotland. Some of these are of very ornate design, and extremely
massive; while on others a _repoussé_ pattern has been worked upon
a plate of thin bronze. Such bracelets hardly come within the scope
of the present work, but a few references to engravings of them are
subjoined:—
Aboyne, Aberdeenshire (_Arch. Journ._, vol. xxii. p. 74; Wilson’s
“Preh. Ann. of Scot.,” vol. ii. pp. 136, 139).
Alvah, Banffshire (_Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot._, vol. vi. p. 11, pl. iii.
1).
Muthill, Perthshire, now in the British Museum (_Arch._, vol. xxviii.
p. 435).
Plunton Castle, Kirkcudbright (_Arch. Journ._, vol. xvi. p. 194;
_Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot._, vol. iii. p. 236).
Strathdon, Aberdeenshire (_Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot._, vol. vi. p. 13, pl.
iii. 2).
[Illustration: Fig. 486.—Cowlam. 1/1]
Among hoards of bronze antiquities belonging to the latter part of the
Bronze Period, rings of various sizes are of not unfrequent occurrence.
They are usually plain and of circular section, as if formed of a
piece of cylindrical wire, though actually cast solid, and do not
for the most part seem to require any illustrations. Some also are
lozenge-shaped in section.
In the hoard found at Marden,[1507] Kent, there were six perfect
bronze rings, varying in diameter from 1⅛ to 1⅜ inch. In the Heathery
Burn Cave were numerous rings of circular section, and varying in
thickness from ½ inch to 1½ inch in diameter. Many of these are now in
the collection of Canon Greenwell, F.R.S. One, 2½ inches in diameter,
was in the hoard found at Westow,[1508] Yorkshire, and may have been
an armlet. Several stout rings, about 1 inch in diameter, “probably
cast in moulds,” were found with various other antiquities in bronze
at Ty Mawr,[1509] Holyhead, and a number of rings of various sizes,
from ⅜ inch to 1½ inch in diameter, were found in the deposit at
Llangwyllog,[1510] Anglesea. There were also three small rings in the
great hoard found at Pant-y-maen,[1511] Glancych.
Several rings, some of lozenge-shaped section and of delicate
workmanship, were found in the hoard at Taunton,[1512] with the pin
and other objects already mentioned.
Such rings may have served various purposes, but were probably used
as means of connection between different straps or accoutrements.
Canon Greenwell has called my attention to two separate instances
of two rings being found together, in company with a bronze sword,
in one case near Medomsley, Durham, and in the other near Rothbury,
Northumberland.
[Illustration: Fig. 487.—Ireland. ½]
The rings found with remains of chariots at Hamden Hill,[1513] near
Montacute, Somersetshire, appear to be of Late Celtic date, and to be
hollow. A hollow ring, however, 1⅜ inch in diameter, and made from
a strip of bronze, fashioned into a tube and left open on the inner
side, was found with a socketed celt, a gouge, and other objects of
bronze, at Melbourn,[1514] Cambridgeshire. Many of those from the
cemetery at Hallstatt are of this kind, wrought from a thin plate of
metal. Some hollow rings from Ireland will subsequently be mentioned.
Near Trillick,[1515] Co. Tyrone, a pin passing transversely through
the body of two rings (see Fig. 496) was found, and with it two large
rings about 3½ inches in diameter, and four smaller, about 2 inches.
These latter appear to be hollow, with probably a clay core inside.
With these objects a socketed celt and a bronze hammer were found.
Nearly six hundred bronze rings are in the Museum of the Royal Irish
Academy.
Some of the Irish rings are cast in pairs, like a figure of 8.[1516]
Others of large size have smaller rings cast upon them. That shown in
Fig. 487, borrowed from Wilde,[1517] is 4¼ inches in diameter, with
rings of 1½ inches diameter upon it. Sir W. Wilde was inclined to
regard it as a bangle with two rings by which to suspend it, but this
appears to me very doubtful. I have an almost identical example of the
form from Ballymoney, Co. Antrim.
A gold ring, 4¼ inches in diameter, with a single small ring playing
upon it, from the great Clare find, is figured by Wilde.[1518] He
states that “similar articles are occasionally observed sculptured
upon the breasts of the statues of ancient Roman generals, the small
ring being attached to the dress.”
Some few bronze ornaments, which have been thought to be finger rings,
have from time to time been found associated with other objects of the
same metal, such as armlets, torques, &c.
One found with the armlets and palstaves in Woolmer Forest,[1519]
Hants, as already mentioned, is shown in Fig. 488. It has been formed
from a small quadrangular bar of metal, cylindrical at the ends,
twisted after the manner of an ordinary torque, and subsequently
coiled into a spiral ring. Mr. Bateman[1520] describes it as a finger
ring. With it was also another twisted bronze ring of the same kind,
but of only one coil. It appears doubtful whether these rings were
not more of the nature of ornamental beads. It will be remembered
that three spiral rings of the same kind, but plain and of about four
coils each, were found on the extremities of the torque discovered
at Hollingbury Hill,[1521] Sussex. They were considerably too large
to fit on the torque, and were regarded as intended in some way to
fasten the garment. Some rings of this kind were found with torques
near Amesbury, as already mentioned. A ring of a single coil, but made
from a twisted bar like that in the figure, was in the hoard found at
Camenz,[1522] Saxony, in which also were fragments of torques.
[Illustration: Fig. 488.—Woolmer Forest. 1/1]
[Illustration: Fig. 489.—Dumbarton.]
I have three small twisted penannular rings of gold which were found
with a small torque of the same metal near Carcassonne, Aude. They
are of different sizes and weights, but are all too small for the
finger or for ear-rings. One of them is indeed too small to pass over
the recurved end of the torque, but the ends may possibly have been
pinched together since it was found. I am not aware that any of the
rings were ever actually upon the torque, though I have reason to
believe they were found with it.
Mr. Franks has recently presented to the British Museum a gold torque
from Lincolnshire, which has three banded rings of gold, strung like
beads upon it.
Some small penannular rings found on a gold torque at Boyton have
already been mentioned.
The penannular rings so often found in Ireland, and commonly called
ring money, may after all be of the nature of beads.
The large hollow penannular ornaments made of thin gold, and nearly
triangular in section, seem also to be of the nature of beads or
possibly clasps. Straps passed through the narrow notch would require
some trouble to take out; but still such beads could be dislodged from
their string without its ends being unfastened. The ornament shown in
Fig. 489 was found near Dumbarton.[1523]
Others, similar, have been found in Anglesea, Heathery Burn Cave, near
Alnwick,[1524] and in other places. They occur also in Ireland.[1525]
They have frequently been found associated with armlets. Some Egyptian
rings of carnelian, ivory, and other materials have similar notches
through them. They have, however, been regarded as ear-rings.
Bronze finger rings seem to have been in occasional use.
In a perished urn with burnt bones, found with several others,
one containing a barbed flint arrow-head, in the cemetery at
Stanlake,[1526] Oxfordshire, there was a spiral bronze finger ring
of the plainest form, the only fragment of metal brought to light
during nearly a month’s excavations by Mr. Akerman and Mr. Stone.
What may have been a finger ring was also found in the Heathery Burn
Cave,[1527] Durham. It is formed of stout wire, the ends expanding,
and slightly overlapping each other, and is ⅞ inch in diameter.
In the hoard of bronze antiquities found near Edington Burtle,[1528]
Somersetshire, were several small rings; but with one exception
they are hardly such as could have served for finger rings. This
exceptional ring is penannular, and fluted externally like the
bracelet found with it in the same hoard. The form is not unlike that
of the gold ring engraved by Wilde[1529] as his Fig. 609.
Another form of ornament, the ear-ring, appears to have been known
in Britain during the Bronze Period. In two of the barrows on the
Yorkshire Wolds, explored by Canon Greenwell, F.R.S., female skeletons
were found accompanied by such ornaments.
In a barrow at Cowlam,[1530] “touching the temporal bones, which were
stained green by the contact, were two ear-rings of bronze. They
have been made by beating the one end of a piece of bronze flat,
and forming the other end into a pin-shaped termination. This pin
had been passed through the lobe of the ear and then bent round,
the other and flat end being bent over it.” Thus the ear-ring must
have been “permanently fixed in the ear.” One of these rings is,
by Canon Greenwell’s kindness, shown as Fig. 490, as is one from
Goodmanham,[1531] in Fig. 491.
[Illustration: Fig. 490.—Cowlam. 1/1]
[Illustration: Fig. 491.—Goodmanham. 1/1]
In the latter case there was a bronze awl, or drill, behind the head;
the ear-ring here figured was at the right ear, and its fellow, in
a more broken condition, lay under the left shoulder. The better
preserved of the two is somewhat imperfect, and may, I think, have
formed a perfect circle when whole.
[Illustration: Fig. 492.—Orton. 1/1]
Mr. Bateman records finding in a barrow called Stakor Hill,[1532] near
Burton, a female skeleton, “the mastoid bones of which were dyed green
from contact with two small pieces of thin bronze bent in the middle
just sufficiently to clasp the edge or lobe of the ear.” With the
skeleton was a flint “javelin head,” and Mr. Bateman considered the
interment to be the oldest he had met with in which metal was present.
By way of illustration, a much longer form of trough-shaped ear-ring
may be adduced, though the metal in this instance is gold and not
bronze. That shown in Fig. 492 was found with another in a stone cist
at Orton, Morayshire.[1533]
It seems possible that a lunette or diadem of gold was buried with
these ear-rings.
A pair of circular embossed plates, with a beaded ring on each and a
smaller disc above, were found in a tumulus near Lake, Wilts, and have
been regarded as ear-rings. They are in the collection of the Rev. E.
Duke.
In the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy[1534] is another gold ornament
of the same form as Fig. 492. It is, however, smaller, and the lower
part is at present flat. Gold penannular rings of torque-like patterns,
pointed at each end, and which may have been ear-rings, and not
bead-like ornaments, are not uncommon in Ireland and Britain.[1535]
Rings of nearly the same kind are still in use in Northern Africa.
Plain double-pointed penannular ear-rings in bronze are also found, but
I am uncertain as to the period to which they should be assigned. Some
appear to be of Saxon date.[1536]
I have a pair of ear-rings of circular form from Hallstatt, about 2
inches in diameter, of hollow bronze, made from a thin plate, and
with one end pointed which fits into a socket at the other end. Other
ear-rings of bronze,[1537] from the same cemetery, have a small ring
encircling them, to which, in one instance, three small spherical bells
are attached.
In the Laibach Museum are some bronze ear-rings of the Early Iron Age,
much like those from Goodmanham, but broader.
Ear-rings of the Bronze Period appear to be almost unknown in France. I
have, however, specimens found with a hoard of bronze socketed celts,
fragments of swords, spear-heads, bracelets, and a variety of other
objects at Dreuil, near Amiens, about 1872.
They are two in number, in form like Fig. 490, but rather shorter. One
of them is coiled up, and the other has the broad part nearly flat.
Each is ornamented with some parallel lines stamped in across the
broader part. Several small hollow and some solid rings, circular,
semicircular, and flattened in section, were in the same hoard.
Some few objects of bead-like character have from time to time been
found in barrows and with other bronze objects. Dr. Thurnam[1538]
describes a tubular bronze bead, 1¼ inch long, found in a barrow
in Dorset, and now in Mr. Durden’s collection. He thinks the bead
mentioned by Sir R. Colt Hoare as found in a barrow near Fovant[1539]
may have been the spheroidal head of the bronze pin with which it was
found. Some beads of amber and jet were, however, discovered with it.
A notched bead of tin, like a number of small beads strung together,
accompanied a little pin of copper or bronze, most probably an awl,
and some conical buttons of bone or ivory, in a barrow on Sutton
Verney Down,[1540] in which there had been deposited a burnt body.
Hoare says that “it is the only article of that metal we have ever
found in a barrow.”
Small beads, or more probably drum-shaped buttons of gold, as
suggested by Dr. Thurnam,[1541] have also been found in the Wiltshire
barrows.
Beads formed of joints of encrinites, with others formed of burnt
clay, as well as a necklace formed of the shells of dentalium, were
found in a barrow near Winterbourn Stoke.[1542] Glass beads of the
notched form have been found with burnt interments, and frequently
with bronze instruments in others of the Wiltshire barrows.[1543]
Other beads have spiral ornaments in white upon a blue ground. A blue
glass bead, with three yellow spirals on it, was found with the point
of a bronze blade in a cist with burnt bones in a barrow at Eddertoun,
Ross-shire.[1544] Such beads, known as Clachan Nathaireach,[1545] or
serpent stones, have been used as charms for diseased cattle and other
evils.
Glass beads with the same spiral ornamentation have been found in the
cemetery at Hallstatt, and their presence in these graves certainly
affords an argument for assigning them to a comparatively late period,
or at all events to a time when commerce with the Continent was well
established.
Among the objects found at Exning, Suffolk,[1546] are some “curious
bullæ” with clay cores, but they appear to belong to a later date.
As will be seen from the list of personal ornaments described in
the preceding pages, their forms are but few and their number small
in the British Islands, as compared with those of analogous objects
found in some continental countries, as, for instance, Scandinavia
and Switzerland. The absence of several forms of torques has already
been mentioned; the Danish and North German lunette, or diadem-like
bandlets, are also never found in this country, though, perhaps, the
crescent-shaped gold plates or “minds” of the Irish antiquaries may
represent the same class of ornaments. Spirals formed by coiling
long tapering pieces of wire, such as are common in Scandinavia and
throughout Germany, are also unknown, and this circumstance affords an
argument against there having been any direct intercourse in very early
days between this country and Etruria, where such spiral ornaments
abounded. Besides this absence of spirals formed of solid metal, the
engraved spiral ornament which in some countries is characteristic
of the Bronze Period may be said to be absolutely unknown in Britain.
The nearest approach to it is the ring ornament formed of concentric
circles.
The bracelets formed of cylindrical coils of wire are also unknown,
as well as those of hollowed bronze with discoidal ends, such as are
so common in the Swiss Lake-habitations. Decorated pendants, like
those which are found in Switzerland and the South of France, are
also wanting. Altogether the bronze ornaments of Britain are neither
abundant nor, as a rule, highly artistic; and it would appear that
here, at all events, the serviceable qualities of bronze were more
highly appreciated than its decorative lustre.