TORCS
There are twenty-four golden torcs of various types in the National
Collection and one of bronze; but the Irish provenance of the latter
is doubtful.
The best known are the two magnificent gold torcs found in the side of
one of the raths at Tara, and these belong to a type that has been
found in England and France, of which the best known examples are
those found at Yeovil, Somerset,[28] and Grunty Fen, Cambridge.[29] A
torc of this type was also found by Schliemann in the royal treasury
in the second city of Troy. This find has led to a good deal of
speculative opinions varying as to whether the model of the torc was
imported into Ireland from the south, or whether the Irish gold could
have reached the Mediterranean in pre-Mycenaean times.[30] Torcs of
this type were made by folding two thin ribbons of gold along the
middle at a right angle; they were then attached with some kind of
resinous flux, apex to apex, and twisted together. In some cases,
instead of two folded ribbons a flat one and two halves of another
were used, after being fastened together, the twisting being done in
the same way. In some of the Irish examples the body of the torc is
plain, or was grooved to simulate the appearance of the twisted torc.
A peculiar feature of these torcs is the large hooks with which they
are provided. It must be noted that whereas twisted torcs of bronze
are fairly common in England and France there is only one bronze torc
in the Irish National Collection, and, as mentioned above, the
provenance of this is doubtful. The dating of these twisted torcs
is a matter of difficulty, as there are only two instances of their
having been found in association with bronze objects, one in the case
of the Grunty Fen torc which was discovered with three bronze
palstaves, and another found at Fresne la Mere, near Falaise,
Normandy, which was found with a bronze razor and other objects of
bronze. Such evidence as exists, therefore, would place them in the
late Bronze Age, probably somewhere about 1000 B.C., but certain
varieties of torcs, as we shall see, continued in use as late as the
first century. The area of distribution of gold torcs of the Tara type
in Ireland, England and France is very limited, none having been found
in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, Holland, or Spain and
Portugal.[31] It has been suggested that the gold of which all these
torcs were composed came from the Wicklow Mountains,[32] and in view
of the extreme wealth of Ireland in gold, as evinced by the number of
gold ornaments which are still constantly found, this may be
considered probable.
[28] Proceedings Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society,
vol. lv, 1909, pt. ii, pp. 66-84.
[29] Cambridge Antiquarian Society's Communications, vol. xii, p. 96.
[30] Dechelette, "Manuel d'Archeologie," vol. ii, p. 355, note.
[31] Congres Archeologique Francais, Beauvais, 1905, p. 294.
[32] Proc. Soc. Antiquaries of London, second series, vol. xxiv, p. 42.
[Illustration: PLATE VII. Gold Torcs from Tara and elsewhere.
_p. 78._]
[Illustration: PLATE VIII. Gold Torcs. _p. 78._]
Among the other types of gold torcs are two splendid examples, one of
which appears to have been prepared for twisting and left unfinished,
while the other is in a complete state (Plate VIII).
Small torcs made by twisting a plain ribbon are fairly common, and
some of these are so small that they must have been used as bracelets.
In later times the torc was the distinguishing ornament of the Celt,
and there are many allusions to torcs in classical writers. In 223
B.C., 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 torc made from the Roman spoils to their god of war, the
Romans erected a Roman trophy to Jupiter made from Gaulish torcs.
The name of the Torquati, a family of the Manlia Gens, was derived
from their ancestor, T. Manlius, who, having slain a gigantic Gaul in
B.C. 361, took the torc from the dead body, and placed it round his
neck.
The famous statue of the Dying Gaul preserved in the Capitol at Rome
shows a torc on the warrior's neck. This is one of a series of statues
set up by the Greeks of Pergamos to celebrate their struggle with, and
first victory over, the Gauls of Asia Minor, with whom they came in
contact from about 240 to 160 B.C. The twisted torc appears to have
been replaced in Ireland about the second century B.C. by the plain
torc, which was probably introduced from Gaul. The fine gold torc from
Clonmacnois (Plate IX), with La Tene decoration, is a good example of
these torcs, and is almost identical with one from the Marne district
now preserved in the St. Germain Museum. Probably the finest La Tene
torc in existence is that found in the celebrated Broighter find,
which is richly decorated with La Tene ornament (Plate IX, the inner
torc).