Metal Workers and Megalithic Monuments
"Broad-heads" of Bronze Age--The Irish Evidence--Bronze
Introduced by Traders--How Metals were Traced--A Metal Working
Tribe--Damnonii in England, Scotland, and Ireland--Miners
as Slaves--The Lot of Women Workers--Megalithic Monuments
in English Metal-yielding Areas--Stone Circles in Barren
Localities--Early Colonies of Easterners in Spain--Egyptian
and Babylonian Relics associated with British Jet and Baltic
Amber--A New Flint Industry of Eastern Origin--British
Bronze identical with Continental--Ancient Furnaces of
Common Origin--"Stones of Worship" adorned with Metals--The
"Maggot God" of Stone Circles--Ancient Egyptian Beads at
Stonehenge--Earliest Authentic Date in British History--The Aim
of Conquests.
It used to be thought that the introduction of metal working
into Britain was the result of an invasion of alien peoples, who
partly exterminated and partly enslaved the long-headed Neolithic
inhabitants. This view was based on the evidence afforded by a new
type of grave known as the "Round Barrow". In graves of this class
have been found Bronze Age relics, a distinctive kind of pottery, and
skulls of broad-heads. The invasion of broad-heads undoubtedly took
place, and their burial customs suggest that their religious beliefs
were not identical with those of the long-heads. But it remains to be
proved that they were the actual introducers of the bronze industry.
They do not appear to have reached Ireland, where bronze relics are
associated with a long-headed people of comparatively low stature.
The early Irish bronze forms were obviously obtained from Spain,
while early English bronze forms resemble those of France and Italy.
Cutting implements were the first to be introduced. This fact does
not suggest that a conquest took place. The implements may have been
obtained by traders. Britain apparently had in those ancient times
its trading colonies, and was visited by active and enterprising
seafarers.
[Illustration: Long-head (Dolichocephalic) Skull]
[Illustration: Broad-head (Brachycephalic) Skull Both these
specimens were found in "Round" Barrows in the East Riding of
Yorkshire]
The discovery of metals in Britain and Ireland was, no doubt, first
made by prospectors who had obtained experience in working them
elsewhere. They may have simply come to exploit the country. How
these men conducted their investigations is indicated by the report
found in a British Museum manuscript, dating from about 1603, in
which the prospector gives his reason for believing that gold was
to be found on Crawford Moor in Lanarkshire. He tells that he saw
among the rocks what Scottish miners call "mothers" and English
miners "leaders" or "metalline fumes". It was believed that the
"fumes" arose from veins of metal and coloured the rocks as smoke
passing upward through a tunnel blackens it, and leaves traces on the
outside. He professed to be able to distinguish between the colours
left by "fumes" of iron, lead, tin, copper, or silver. On Crawford
Moor he found "sparr, keel, and brimstone" between rocks, and
regarded this discovery as a sure indication that gold was _in situ_.
The "mothers" or "leaders" were more pronounced than any he had ever
seen in Cornwall, Somersetshire, about Keswick, or "any other mineral
parts wheresoever I have travelled".[63] Gold was found in this area
of Lanarkshire in considerable quantities, and was no doubt worked
in ancient times. Of special interest in this connection is the fact
that it was part of the territory occupied by Damnonians,[64] who
appear to have been a metal-working people. Besides occupying the
richest metal-yielding area in Scotland, the Damnonians were located
in Devon and Cornwall, and in the east-midland and western parts
of Ireland, in which gold, copper, and tin-stone were found as in
south-western England. The Welsh _Dyfneint_ (Devon) is supposed by
some to be connected with a form of this tribal name. Another form
in a Yarrow inscription is Dumnogeni. In Ireland Inber Domnann is
the old name of Malahide Bay north of Dublin. Domnu, the genitive of
which is Domnann, was the name of an ancient goddess. In the Irish
manuscripts these people are referred to as Fir-domnann,[65] and
associated with the Fir-bolg (the men with sacks). A sack-carrying
people are represented in Spanish rock paintings that date from
the Azilian till early "Bronze Age" times. In an Irish manuscript
which praises the fair and tall people, the Fir-bolg and Fir-domnann
are included among the black-eyed and black-haired people, the
descendants of slaves and churls, and "the promoters of discord among
the people".
[63] R. W. Cochrane Patrick, _Early Records relating to Mining in
Scotland_. Edinburgh, 1878, p. xxviii.
[64] The _Damnonii_ or _Dumnonii_.
[65] The Fir-domnann were known as "the men who used to deepen
the earth", or "dig pits". Professor J. MacNeil in _Labor
Gabula_, p. 119. They were thus called "Diggers" like the modern
Australians. The name of the goddess referred to the depths (the
Underworld). It is probable she was the personification of the
metal-yielding earth.
The reference to "slaves" is of special interest because the lot of
the working miners was in ancient days an extremely arduous one.
In one of his collected records which describes the method "of the
greatest antiquity" Diodorus Siculus (A.D. first century) tells how
gold-miners, with lights bound on their foreheads, drove galleries
into the rocks, the fragments of which were carried out by frail
old men and boys. These were broken small by men in the prime of
life. The pounded stone was then ground in handmills by women: three
women to a mill and "to each of those who bear this lot, death is
better than life". Afterwards the milled quartz was spread out on an
inclined table. Men threw water on it, work it through their fingers,
and dabbed it with sponges until the lighter matter was removed and
the gold was left behind. The precious metal was placed in a clay
crucible, which was kept heated for five days and five nights. It may
be that the Scandinavian references to the nine maidens who turn the
handle of the "world mill" which grinds out metal and soil, and the
Celtic references to the nine maidens who are associated with the
Celtic cauldron, survive from beliefs that reflected the habits and
methods of the ancient metal workers.
It is difficult now to trace the various areas in which gold was
anciently found in our islands. But this is not to be wondered at.
In Egypt there were once rich goldfields, especially in the Eastern
Desert, where about 100 square miles were so thoroughly worked in
ancient times that "only the merest traces of gold remain".[66] Gold,
as has been stated, was formerly found in south-western England,
North Wales, and, as historical records, archæological data, and
place names indicate, in various parts of Scotland and Ireland.
During the period of the "Great Thaw" a great deal of alluvial gold
must have distributed throughout the country. Silver was found
in various parts. In Sutherland it is mixed with gold as it is
elsewhere with lead. Copper was worked in a number of districts
where the veins cannot in modern times be economically worked, and
tin was found in Ireland and Scotland as well as in south-western
England, where mining operations do not seem to have been begun, as
Principal Sir John Rhys has shown,[67] until after the supplies of
surface tin were exhausted. Of special interest in connection with
this problem is the association of megalithic monuments with ancient
mine workings. An interesting fact to be borne in mind in connection
with these relics of the activities and beliefs of the early peoples
is that they represent a distinct culture of complex character.
Mr. T. Eric Peet[68] shows that the megalithic buildings "occupy a
very remarkable position along a vast seaboard which includes the
Mediterranean coast of Africa and the Atlantic coast of Europe.
In other words, they lie entirely along a natural sea route." He
gives forcible reasons for arriving at the conclusion that "it is
impossible to consider megalithic building as a mere phase through
which many nations passed, and it must therefore have been a system
originating with one race, and spreading far and wide, owing either
to trade influence or migration". He adds:
"Great movements of races by sea were not by any means unusual
in primitive days. In fact, the sea has always been less of
an obstacle to early man than the land with its deserts,
mountains, and unfordable rivers. There is nothing inherently
impossible or even improbable in the suggestion that a great
immigration brought the megalithic monuments from Sweden to
India or vice versa. History is full of instances of such
migrations."
[66] Alford, _A Report on Ancient and Prospective Gold Mining in
Egypt_, 1900, and _Mining in Egypt_ (by Egyptologist).
[67] _Celtic Britain_, pp. 44 _et seq._ (4th edition).
[68] _Rough Stone Monuments_, London, 1912, pp. 147-8.
But there must have been a definite reason for these race movements.
It cannot be that in all cases they were forced merely by natural
causes, such as changes of climate, invasions of the sea, and
the drying up of once fertile districts, or by the propelling
influences of stronger races in every country from the British Isles
to Japan--that is, in all countries in which megalithic monuments
of similar type are found. The fact that the megalithic monuments
are distributed along "a vast seaboard" suggests that they were
the work of people who had acquired a culture of common origin,
and were attracted to different countries for the same reason.
What that attraction was is indicated by studying the elements of
the megalithic culture. In a lecture delivered before the British
Association in Manchester in 1915, Mr. W. J. Perry threw much light
on the problem by showing that the carriers of the culture practised
weaving linen, and in some cases the use of Tyrian purple, pearls,
precious stones, metals, and conch-shell trumpets, as well as curious
beliefs and superstitions attached to the latter, while they
"adopted certain definite metallurgical methods, as well as mining".
Mr. Perry's paper was subsequently published by the Manchester
Literary and Philosophical Society. It shows that in Western Europe
the megalithic monuments are distributed in those areas in which
ancient pre-Roman and pre-Greek mine workings and metal washings have
been traced. "The same correspondence", he writes, "seems to hold in
the case of England and Wales. In the latter country the counties
where megalithic structures abound are precisely those where mineral
deposits and ancient mine-workings occur. In England the grouping in
Cumberland, Westmorland, Northumberland, Durham, and Derbyshire is
precisely that of old mines; in Cornwall the megalithic structures
are mainly grouped west of Falmouth, precisely in that district where
mining has always been most active."
Pearls, amber, coral, jet, &c., were searched for as well as metals.
The megalithic monuments near pearling rivers, in the vicinity of
Whitby, the main source of jet, and in Denmark and the Baltic area
where amber was found were, in all likelihood, erected by people who
had come under the spell of the same ancient culture.
When, therefore, we come to deal with groups of monuments in areas
which were unsuitable for agriculture and unable to sustain large
populations, a reasonable conclusion to draw is that precious metals,
precious stones, or pearls were once found near them. The pearling
beds may have been destroyed or greatly reduced in value,[69] or the
metals may have been worked out, leaving but slight if any indication
that they were ever _in situ_. Reference has been made to the traces
left by ancient miners in Egypt where no gold is now found. In
our own day rich gold fields in Australia and North America have
been exhausted. It would be unreasonable for us to suppose that the
same thing did not happen in our country, even although but slight
traces of the precious metal can now be obtained in areas which were
thoroughly explored by ancient miners.
[69] The Scottish pearling beds have suffered great injury in
historic times. They are the property of the "Crown", and no one
takes any interest in them except the "pearl poachers".
When early man reached Scotland in search of suitable districts in
which to settle, he was not likely to be attracted by the barren
or semi-barren areas in which nature grudged soil for cultivation,
where pasture lands were poor and the coasts were lashed by great
billows for the greater part of the year, and the tempests of winter
and spring were particularly severe. Yet in such places as Carloway,
fronting the Atlantic on the west coast of Lewis, and at Stennis
in Orkney, across the dangerous Pentland Firth, are found the most
imposing stone circles north of Stonehenge and Avebury. Traces of
tin have been found in Lewis, and Orkney has yielded traces of lead,
including silver-lead, copper and zinc, and has flint in glacial
drift. Traces of tin have likewise been found on the mainlands of
Ross-shire and Argyllshire, in various islands of the Hebrides and
in Stirlingshire. The great Stonehenge circle is like the Callernish
and Stennis circles situated in a semi-barren area, but it is an area
where surface tin and gold were anciently obtained. One cannot help
concluding that the early people, who populated the wastes of ancient
Britain and erected megalithic monuments, were attracted by something
more tangible than the charms of solitude and wild scenery. They
searched for and found the things they required. If they found gold,
it must be recognized that there was a psychological motive for the
search for this precious metal. They valued gold, or whatever other
metal they worked in bleak and isolated places, because they had
learned to value it elsewhere.
Who were the people that first searched for, found, and used metals
in Western Europe? Some have assumed that the natives themselves did
so "as a matter of course". Such a theory is, however, difficult to
maintain. Gold is a useless metal for all practical purposes. It is
too soft for implements. Besides, it cannot be found or worked except
by those who have acquired a great deal of knowledge and skill. The
men who first "washed" it from the soil in Britain must have obtained
the necessary knowledge and skill in a country where it was more
plentiful and much easier to work, and where--and this point is a
most important one--the magical and religious beliefs connected with
gold have a very definite history. Copper, tin, and silver were even
more difficult to find and work in Britain. The ancient people who
reached Britain and first worked metals or collected ores were not
the people who were accustomed to use implements of bone, horn, and
flint, and had been attracted to its shores merely because fish,
fowl, deer, and cows, were numerous. The searchers for metals must
have come from centres of Eastern civilization, or from colonies of
highly skilled peoples that had been established in Western Europe.
They did not necessarily come to settle permanently in Britain, but
rather to exploit its natural riches.
This conclusion is no mere hypothesis. Siret,[70] the Belgian
archæologist, has discovered in southern Spain and Portugal traces
of numerous settlements of Easterners who searched for minerals,
&c., long before the introduction of bronze working in Western
Europe. They came during the archæological "Stone Age"; they even
introduced some of the flint implements classed as Neolithic by the
archæologists of a past generation.
[70] _L'Anthropologie_, 1921, contains a long account of his
discoveries.
These Eastern colonists do not appear to have been an organized
people. Siret considers that they were merely groups of people
from Asia--probably the Syrian coast--who were in contact with
Egypt. During the Empire period of Egypt, the Egyptian sphere of
influence extended to the borders of Asia Minor. At an earlier period
Babylonian influence permeated the Syrian coast and part of Asia
Minor. The religious beliefs of seafarers from Syria were likely
therefore to bear traces of the Egyptian and Babylonian religious
systems. Evidence that this was the case has been forthcoming in
Spain.
These Eastern colonists not only operated in Spain and Portugal, but
established contact with Northern Europe. They exported what they
had searched for and found to their Eastern markets. No doubt, they
employed native labour, but they do not appear to have instructed the
natives how to make use of the ores they themselves valued so highly.
In time they were expelled from Spain and Portugal by the people or
mixed peoples who introduced the working of bronze and made use of
bronze weapons. These bronze carriers and workers came from Central
Europe, where colonies of peoples skilled in the arts of mining and
metal working had been established. In the Central European colonies
Ægean and Danubian influences have been detected.
[Illustration:
Valentine
THE RING OF STENNIS, ORKNEY (see page 94)]
Among the archæological finds, which prove that the Easterners
settled in Iberia before bronze working was introduced among the
natives, are idol-like objects made of hippopotamus ivory from Egypt,
a shell (_Dentalium elephantum_) from the Red Sea, objects made from
ostrich eggs which must have been carried to Spain from Africa,
alabaster perfume flasks, cups of marble and alabaster of Egyptian
character which had been shaped with copper implements, Oriental
painted vases with decorations in red, black, blue, and green,[71]
mural paintings on layers of plaster, feminine statuettes in
alabaster which Siret considers to be of Babylonian type, for they
differ from Ægean and Egyptian statuettes, a cult object (found in
graves) resembling the Egyptian _ded_ amulet, &c. The Iberian burial
places of these Eastern colonists have arched cupolas and entrance
corridors of Egyptian-Mycenæan character.
[71] The colours blue and green were obtained from copper.
Of special interest are the beautifully worked flints associated with
these Eastern remains in Spain and Portugal. Siret draws attention
to the fact that no trace has been found of "flint factories". This
particular flint industry was an entirely new one. It was not a
development of earlier flint-working in Iberia. Apparently the new
industry, which suddenly appears in full perfection, was introduced
by the Eastern colonists. It afterwards spread over the whole
maritime west, including Scandinavia where the metal implements
of more advanced countries were imitated in flint. This important
fact emphasizes the need for caution in making use of such a term
as "Neolithic Age". Siret's view in this connection is that the
Easterners, who established trading colonies in Spain and elsewhere,
prevented the local use of metals which they had come to search
for and export. It was part of their policy to keep the natives in
ignorance of the uses to which metals could be put.
Evidence has been forthcoming that the operations of the Eastern
colonies in Spain and Portugal were extended towards the maritime
north. Associated with the Oriential relics already referred to,
Siret has discovered amber from the Baltic, jet from Britain
(apparently from Whitby in Yorkshire) and the green-stone called
"callais" usually found in beds of tin. The Eastern seafarers
must have visited Northern Europe to exploit its virgin riches. A
green-stone axe was found, as has been stated, near the boat with the
cork plug, which lay embedded in Clyde silt at Glasgow. Artifacts of
callais have been discovered in Brittany, in the south of France, in
Portugal, and in south-eastern Spain. In the latter area, as Siret
has proved, the Easterners worked silver-bearing lead and copper.
The colonists appear to have likewise searched for and found gold. A
diadem of gold was discovered in a necropolis in the south of Spain,
where some eminent ancient had been interred. This find is, however,
an exception. Precious metals do not as a rule appear in the graves
of the period under consideration.
As has been suggested, the Easterners who exploited the wealth of
ancient Iberia kept the natives in ignorance. "This ignorance", Siret
says, "was the guarantee of the prosperity of the commerce carried
on by the strangers.... The first action of the East on the West
was the exploitation for its exclusive and personal profit of the
virgin riches of the latter." These early Westerners had no idea of
the use and value of the metals lying on the surface of their native
land, while the Orientals valued them, were in need of them, and were
anxious to obtain them. As Siret puts it:
"The West was a cow to be milked, a sheep to be fleeced, a
field to be cultivated, a mine to be exploited."
In the traditions preserved by classical writers, there are
references to the skill and cunning of the Phoenicians in commerce,
and in the exploitation of colonies founded among the ignorant
Iberians. They did not inform rival traders where they found metals.
"Formerly", as Strabo says, "the Phoenicians monopolized the trade
from Gades (Cadiz) with the islanders (of the Cassiterides); and
they kept the route a close secret." A vague ancient tradition is
preserved by Pliny, who tells that "tin was first fetched from
Cassiteris (the tin island) by Midacritus".[72] We owe it to the
secretive Phoenicians that the problem of the Cassiterides still
remains a difficult one to solve.
[72] _Nat. Hist._, VII, 56 (57), § 197.
To keep the native people ignorant the Easterners, Siret believes,
forbade the use of metals in their own colonies. A direct result
of this policy was the great development which took place in the
manufacture of the beautiful flint implements already referred to.
These the natives imitated, never dreaming that they were imitating
some forms that had been developed by a people who used copper in
their own country. When, therefore, we pick up beautiful Neolithic
flints, we cannot be too sure that the skill displayed belongs
entirely to the "Stone Age", or that the flints "evolved" from
earlier native forms in those areas in which they are found.
The Easterners do not appear to have extracted the metals from
their ores either in Iberia or in Northern Europe. Tin-stone and
silver-bearing lead were used for ballast for their ships, and they
made anchors of lead. Gold washed from river beds could be easily
packed in small bulk. A people who lived by hunting and fishing were
not likely to be greatly interested in the laborious process of
gold-washing. Nor were they likely to attach to gold a magical and
religious value as did the ancient Egyptians and Sumerians.
So far as can be gathered from the Iberian evidence, the period of
exploitation by the colonists from the East was a somewhat prolonged
one. How many centuries it covered we can only guess. It is of
interest to find, in this connection, however, that something was
known in Mesopotamia before 2000 B.C. regarding the natural riches
of Western Europe. Tablets have recently been found on the site
of Asshur, the ancient capital of Assyria, which was originally a
Sumerian settlement. These make reference to the Empire of Sargon of
Akkad (_c._ 2600 B.C.), which, according to tradition, extended from
the Persian Gulf to the Syrian coast. Sargon was a great conqueror.
"He poured out his glory over the world", declares a tablet found a
good many years ago. It was believed, too, that Sargon embarked on
the Mediterranean and occupied Cyprus. The fresh evidence from the
site of Asshur is to the effect that he conquered Kaptara (? Crete)
and "the Tin Land beyond the Upper Sea" (the Mediterranean). The
explanation may be that he obtained control of the markets to which
the Easterners carried from Spain and the coasts of Northern Europe
the ores, pearls, &c., they had searched for and found. It may
be, therefore, that Britain was visited by Easterners even before
Sargon's time, and that the Glasgow boat with the plug of cork was
manned by dark Orientals who were prospecting the Scottish coast
before the last land movement had ceased--that is, some time after
3000 B.C.
[Illustration: MEGALITHS
Upper: Kit's Coty House, Kent. Lower: Trethevy Stone, Cornwall.]
When the Easterners were expelled from Spain by a people from
Central Europe who used weapons of bronze, some of them appear to
have found refuge in Gaul. Siret is of opinion that others withdrew
from Brittany, where subsidences were taking place along the
coast, leaving their megalithic monuments below high-water mark,
and even under several feet of water as at Morbraz. He thinks that
the settlements of Easterners in Brittany were invaded at one and
the same time by the enemy and the ocean. Other refugees from the
colonies may have settled in Etruria, and founded the Etruscan
civilization. Etruscan menhirs resemble those of the south of France,
while the Etruscan crozier or wand, used in the art of augury,
resembles the croziers of the megaliths, &c., of France, Spain,
and Portugal. There are references in Scottish Gaelic stories
to "magic wands" possessed by "wise women", and by the mothers
of Cyclopean one-eyed giants. Ammianus Marcellinus, quoting
Timagenes,[73] attributes to the Druids the statement that part of the
inhabitants of Gaul were indigenous, but that some had come from the
farthest shores and districts across the Rhine, "having been expelled
from their own lands by frequent wars and the encroachments of the
ocean".
[73] Timagenes (_c._ 85-5 B.C.), an Alexandrian historian,
wrote a history of the Gauls which was made use of by Ammianus
Marcellinus (A.D. fourth century), a Greek of Antioch, and the
author of a history of the Roman Emperors.
The bronze-using peoples who established overland trade routes in
Europe, displacing in some localities the colonies of Easterners and
isolating others, must have instructed the natives of Western Europe
how to mine and use metals. Bronze appears to have been introduced
into Britain by traders. That the ancient Britons did not begin
quite spontaneously to work copper and tin and manufacture bronze
is quite evident, because the earliest specimens of British bronze
which have been found are made of ninety per cent of copper and ten
per cent of tin as on the Continent. "Now, since a knowledge of the
compound", wrote Dr. Robert Munro, "implies a previous acquaintance
with its component elements, it follows that progress in metallurgy
had already reached the stage of knowing the best combination of
these metals for the manufacture of cutting tools before bronze was
practically known in Britain."[74]
[74] _Prehistoric Britain_, p. 145.
The furnaces used were not invented in Britain. Professor Gowland
has shown that in Europe and Asia the system of working mines
and melting metals was identical in ancient times. Summarizing
Professor Gowland's articles in _Archæologia_ and the _Journal of
the Royal Anthropological Institute_, Mr. W. J. Perry writes in this
connection:[75] "The furnaces employed were similar; the crucibles
were of the same material, and generally of the same form; the
process of smelting, first on the surface and then in the crucibles
was found everywhere, even persisting down to present times in the
absence of any fresh cultural influence. The study of the technique
of mining and smelting has served to consolidate the floating
mass of facts which we have accumulated, and to add support for
the contention that one cultural influence is responsible for the
earliest mining and smelting and washing of metals and the getting
of precious stones and metals. The cause of the distribution of the
megalithic culture was the search for certain forms of material
wealth."
[75] _The Relationship between the Geographical Distribution of
Megalithic Monuments and Ancient Mines_, pp. 21 _et seq._
That certain of the megalithic monuments were intimately connected
with the people who attached a religious value to metals is brought
out very forcibly in the references to pagan customs and beliefs
in early Christian Gaelic literature. There are statements in the
Lives of St. Patrick regarding a pagan god called "Cenn Cruach" and
"Crom Cruach" whose stone statue was "adorned with gold and silver,
and surrounded by twelve other statues with bronze ornaments". The
"statue" is called "the king idol of Erin", and it is stated that
"the twelve idols were made of stone, but he ('Crom Cruach') was of
gold". To this god of a stone circle were offered up "the firstlings
of every issue and the chief scions of every clan". Another idol was
called Crom Dubh ("Black Crom"), and his name "is still connected",
O'Curry has written, "with the first Sunday of August in Munster
and Connaught". An Ulster idol was called Crom Chonnaill, which
was either a living animal or a tree, or was "believed to have
been such", O'Curry says. De Jubainville translates _Cenn Cruach_
as "Bloody Head" and _Crom Cruach_ as "Bloody Curb" or "Bloody
Crescent". O'Curry, on the other hand, translates _Crom Cruach_
as "Bloody Maggot" and _Crom Dubh_ as "Black Maggot". In Gaelic
legends "maggots" or "worms" are referred to as forms of supernatural
beings. The maggot which appeared on the flesh of a slain animal was
apparently regarded as a new form assumed by the indestructible
soul, just as in the Egyptian story of Bata the germ of life passes
from his bull form in a drop of blood from which two trees spring
up, and then in a chip from one of the trees from which the man
is restored in his original form.[76] A similar belief, which is
widespread, is that bees have their origin as maggots placed in
trees. One form of the story was taken over by the early Christians,
which tells that Jesus was travelling with Peter and Paul and asked
hospitality from an old woman. The woman refused it and struck Paul
on the head. When the wound putrified maggots were produced. Jesus
took the maggots from the wound and placed them in the hollow of a
tree. When next they passed that way, "Jesus directed Paul to look
in the tree hollow where, to his surprise, he found bees and honey
sprung from his own head".[77] The custom of placing crape on hives
and "telling the bees" when a death takes place, which still survives
in the south of England and in the north of Scotland, appears to be
connected with the ancient belief that the maggot, bee, and tree were
connected with the sacred animal and the sacred stone in which was
the spirit of a deity. Sacred trees and sacred stones were intimately
connected. Tacitus tells us that the Romans invaded Mona (Anglesea),
they destroyed the sacred groves in which the Druids and black-robed
priestesses covered the altars with the blood of captives.[78]
There are a number of dolmens on this island and traces of ancient
mine-workings, indicating that it had been occupied by the early
seafarers who colonized Britain and Ireland and worked metals. A
connection between the tree cult of the Druids and the cult of the
builders of megaliths is thus suggested by Tacitus, as well as by
the Irish evidence regarding the Ulster idol Crom Chonnaill, referred
to above (see also Chapter XII).
[76] A worm crept from the heart of a dead Phoenix, and gave
origin to a new Phoenix.--_Herodotus_, II, 73.
[77] Rendel Harris, _The Ascent of Olympus_, p. 2.
[78] _Annals of Tacitus_, Book XIV, Chapter 29-30.
Who were the people that followed the earliest Easterners and visited
our shores to search like them for metals and erect megalithic
monuments? It is impossible to answer that question with certainty.
There were after the introduction of bronze working, as has been
indicated, intrusions of aliens. These included the introducers of
the short-barrow method of burial and the later introducers of burial
by cremation. It does not follow that all intrusions were those of
conquerors. Traders and artisans may have come with their families in
large numbers and mingled with the earlier peoples. Some intruders
appear to have come by overland routes from southern and central
France and from Central Europe and the Danube valley, while others
came across the sea from Spain. That a regular over-seas trade-route
was in existence is indicated by the references made by classical
writers to the Cassiterides (Tin Islands). Strabo tells that the
natives "bartered tin and hides with merchants for pottery, salt, and
articles of bronze". The Phoenicians, as has been noted, "monopolized
the trade from Gades (Cadiz) with the islanders and kept the route
a close secret". It was probably along this sea-route that Egyptian
blue beads reached Britain. Professor Sayce has identified a number
of these in Devizes Museum, and writes:
"They are met with plentifully in the Early Bronze Age tumuli
of Wiltshire in association with amber beads and barrel-shaped
beads of jet or lignite. Three of them come from Stonehenge
itself. Similar beads of ivory have been found in a Bronze Age
cist near Warminster: if the material is really ivory it must
have been derived from the East. The cylindrical faience beads,
it may be added, have been discovered in Dorsetshire as well as
in Wiltshire."
Professor Sayce emphasizes that these blue beads "belong to one
particular period in Egyptian history, the latter part of the
Eighteenth Dynasty and the earlier part of the Nineteenth Dynasty....
The period to which they belong may be dated 1450-1250 B.C., and as
we must allow some time for their passage across the trade routes
to Wiltshire an approximate date for their presence in the British
barrows will be 1300 B.C."
[Illustration: Beads from Bronze Age Barrows on Salisbury Plain
The large central bead and the small round ones are of amber; the
long plain ones are of jet; and the long segmented or notched
beads are of an opaque blue substance (faience).]
Dr. H. R. Hall, of the British Museum, who discovered, at Deir
el-Bahari in Egypt, "thousands of blue glaze beads of the exact
particular type of those found in Britain", says that they date back
till "about 1500 B.C.". He noted the resemblance before Professor
Sayce had written. "It is gratifying", he comments, "that the
Professor agrees that the Devizes beads are undoubtedly Egyptian, as
an important voice is thereby added to the consensus of opinion on
the subject." Similar beads have been found in the "Middle Bronze Age
in Crete and in Western Europe". Dr. Hall thinks the Egyptian beads
may have reached Britain as early as "about 1400 B.C.".[79] We have
thus provided for us an early date in British history, based on the
well authenticated chronology of the Empire period of Ancient Egypt.
Easterners, or traders in touch with Easterners, reached our shores
carrying Egyptian beads shortly before or early in the fourteenth
century B.C. At this time amber was being imported into the south of
England from the Baltic, while jet was being carried from Whitby in
Yorkshire.
[79] The _Journal of Egyptian Archæology_, Vol. I, part I, pp.
18-19.
After the introduction of bronze working in Western Europe the
natives began to work and use metals. These could not have been
Celts, for in the fourteenth century B.C. the Celts had not yet
reached Western Europe.[80] The earliest searchers for metals who
visited Britain must therefore have been the congeners of those who
erected the megalithic monuments in the metal-yielding areas of Spain
and Portugal and north-western France.
[80] It may be that Celtic chronology will have to be readjusted
in the light of recent discoveries.
It would appear that the early Easterners exploited the virgin riches
of Western Europe for a long period--perhaps for over a thousand
years--and that, after their Spanish colonies were broken up by a
bronze-using people from Central Europe, the knowledge of how to
work metals spread among the natives. Overland trade routes were
then opened up. At first these were controlled in Western Europe by
the Iberians. In time the Celts swept westward and formed with the
natives mixed communities of Celtiberians. The Easterners appear to
have inaugurated a new era in Western European commerce after the
introduction of iron working. They had colonies in the south and
west of Europe and on the North African coast, and obtained supplies
of metals, &c., by sea. They kept the sea-routes secret. British
ores, &c., were carried to Spain and Carthage. After Pytheas visited
Britain (see next chapter) the overland trade-route to Marseilles was
opened up. Supplies of surface tin having become exhausted, tin-mines
were opened in Cornwall. The trade of Britain then came under the
control of Celtiberian and Celtic peoples, who had acquired their
knowledge of shipbuilding and navigation from the Easterners and the
mixed descendants of Eastern and Iberian peoples.
It does not follow that the early and later Easterners were all of
one physical type. They, no doubt, brought with them their slaves,
including miners and seamen, drawn from various countries where they
had been purchased or abducted.
The men who controlled the ancient trade were not necessarily
permanent settlers in Western Europe. When the carriers of bronze
from Central Europe obtained control of the Iberian colonies, many
traders may have fled to other countries, but many colonists, and
especially the workers, may have become the slaves of the intruders,
as did the Fir-bolgs of Ireland who were subdued by the Celts.
The Damnonians of Britain and Ireland who occupied mineral areas
may have been a "wave" of early Celtic or Celtiberian people.
Ultimately the Celts came, as did the later Normans, and formed
military aristocracies over peoples of mixed descent. The idea
that each intrusion involved the extermination of earlier peoples
is a theory which does not accord with the evidence of the ancient
Gaelic manuscripts, of classical writers, of folk tradition, and of
existing race types in different areas in Britain and Ireland.
A people who exterminated those they conquered would have robbed
themselves of the chief fruits of conquest. In ancient as in later
times the aim of conquest was to obtain the services of a subject
people and the control of trade.