Figurines are common enough things in ancient sites; by no means so
common are the grotesque heads found at Dumbuck and Langbank. They have
recently been found in Portugal. Did the forger know that? Did he forge
them on Portuguese models? Or was it chance coincidence? Or was it
undesigned parallelism? There is such a case according to Mortillet. M.
de Mortillet flew upon poor Prof. Pigorini's odd things, denouncing them
as forgeries; he had attacked Dr. Schliemann's finds in his violent way,
and never apologised, to my knowledge.
Then a lively squabble began. Italian "archaeologists of the highest
standing" backed Prof. Pigorini: Mortillet had not seen the Italian
things, but he stood to his guns. Things found near Cracow were taken as
corroborating the Breonio finds, also things from Volosova, in Russia.
Mortillet replied by asking "why under similar conditions could not
forgers" (very remote in space,) "equally fabricate objects of the same
form." {127} Is it likely?
Why should they forge similar unheard-of things in Russia, Poland, and
Italy? Did the same man wander about forging, or was telepathy at work,
or do forging wits jump? The Breonio controversy is undecided;
"practised persons" can _not_ "read the antiquities as easily as print,"
to quote Mr. Read. They often read them in different ways, here as
fakes, there as authentic.
M. Boulle, reviewing Dr. Munro in _L'Anthropologie_ (August, 1905), says
that M. Cartailhac recognises the genuineness of some of the strange
objects from Breonio.
But, as to our Dumbuck things, the Clyde forger went to Portugal and
forged there; or the Clyde forger came from Portugal; or forging wits
coincided fairly well, in Portugal and in Scotland, as earlier, at
Volosova and Breonio.
In _Portugalia_, a Portuguese archaeological magazine, edited by Don
Ricardo Severe, appeared an article by the Rev. Father Jose Brenha on the
dolmens of Pouco d'Aguiar. Father Raphael Rodrigues, of that place,
asked Father Brenha to excavate with him in the Christmas holidays of
1894. They published some of their discoveries in magazines, and some of
the finds were welcomed by Dr. Leite de Vasconcellos, in his _Religioes
da Lusitania_ (vol. i. p. 341). They dug in the remote and not very
cultured Transmontane province, and, in one dolmen found objects "the
most extraordinary possible," says Father Brenha. {128} There were
perforated plaques with alphabetic inscriptions; stones engraved with
beasts of certain or of dubious species, very fearfully and wonderfully
drawn; there were stone figurines of females, as at Dumbuck; there were
stones with cups and lines connecting the cups, (common in many places)
and, as at Dumbuck, there were grotesque heads in stone. (See a few
examples, figs. 20-24).
Figures 20, 21, 24 are cupped, or cup and duct stones; 22 is a female
figurine; 23 is a heart-shaped charm stone.
{ Fig. 22: p128.jpg}
On all this weighty mass of stone objects, Dr. Munro writes thus:
"Since the MS. of this volume was placed in the hands of the
publishers a new side-issue regarding some strange objects, said to
have been found in Portuguese dolmens, has been imported into the
Clyde controversy, in which Mr. Astley has taken a prominent part. In
a communication to the _Antiquary_, April, 1904, he writes: 'I will
merely say here, on this point, that my arguments are brought to a
scientific conclusion in my paper, 'Portuguese Parallels to Clydeside
Discoveries,' reported in your issue for March, which will shortly be
published.
"I have seen the article in _Portugalia_ and the published 'scientific
conclusion' of Mr. Astley (_Journal of B.A.A._, April and August,
1904), and can only say that, even had I space to discuss the matter I
would not do so for two reasons. First, because I see no parallelism
whatever between the contrasted objects from the Portuguese dolmens
and the Clyde ancient sites, beyond the fact that they are both 'queer
things.' And, secondly, because some of the most eminent European
scholars regard the objects described and illustrated in _Portugalia_
as forgeries. The learned Director of the Musee de St. Germain, M.
Saloman Reinach, thus writes about them: 'Jusqu'a nouvel ordre, c'est-
a-dire jusqu'a preuve formelle du contraire je considere ces pierres
sculptees et gravees comme le produit d'une mystification. J'aimerais
connaitre, a ce sujet, l'opinion des autres savants du Portugal'
(_Revue Archeologique_, 4th S., vol. ii., 1903, p. 431)."
I had brought the Portuguese things to the notice of English readers long
before Mr. Astley did so, but that is not to the purpose.
The point is that Dr. Munro denies the parallelism between the Clyde and
Portuguese objects. Yet I must hold that stone figurines of women,
grotesque heads in stone, cupped stones, stones with cup and duct, stones
with rays proceeding from a central point, and perforated stones with
linear ornamentation, are rather "parallel," in Portugal and in
Clydesdale.
So far the Scottish and the Portuguese fakers have hit on parallel lines
of fraud. Meanwhile I know of no archaeologists except Portuguese
archaeologists, who have seen the objects from the dolmen, and of no
Portuguese archaeologist who disputes their authenticity. So there the
matter rests. {130} The parallelism appears to me to be noticeable. I
do not say that the styles of art are akin, but that the artists, by a
common impulse, have produced cupped stones, perforated and inscribed
stones, figurines in stone, and grotesque heads in stone.
Is not this common impulse rather curious? And is suspicion of forgery
to fall, in Portugal, on respectable priests, or on the very uncultured
wags of Traz os Montes? Mortillet, educated by priests, hated and
suspected all of them. M. Cartailhac suspected "clericals," as to the
Spanish cave paintings, but acknowledged his error. I can guess no
motive for the ponderous bulk of Portuguese forgeries, and am a little
suspicious of the tendency to shout "Forgery" in the face of everything
unfamiliar.
But the Portuguese things are suspected by M. Cartailhac, (who, however,
again admits that he has been credulously incredulous before,) as well as
by M. Reinach. The things ought to be inspected in themselves. I still
think that they are on parallel lines with the work of the Clyde forger,
who may have read about them in _A Vida Moderna_ 1895, 1896, in
_Archeologo Portugues_, in _Encyclopedia dar Familiar_, in various
numbers, and in _Religioes da Lusitania_, vol. i. pp. 341, 342, (1897), a
work by the learned Director of the Ethnological Museum of Portugal. To
these sources the Dumbuck forger may have gone for inspiration.
Stated without this elegant irony, my opinion is that the parallelism of
the figurines and grotesque stone faces of Villa d'Aguiar and of Clyde
rather tends to suggest the genuineness of both sets of objects. But
this opinion, like my opinion about the Australian and other
parallelisms, is no argument against Dr. Munro, for he acknowledges none
of these parallelisms. That point,--a crucial point,--are the various
sets of things analogous in character or not? must be decided for each
reader by himself, according to his knowledge, taste, fancy, and bias.