Penannular Rings and Ring-Money
Fig. 62.—Gold fibulæ, and other objects found together at Coachford, Co. Cork.
Fig. 63.—Sixteenth-century bronze casting from Benin, showing Europeans holding manillas (after Read and Dalton, Antiquities of the City of Benin).
The large number of penannular rings with cup-shaped ends which have been found from time to time in the island, brings us on to the general question of the so-called Irish fibulæ. In Ireland penannular rings with cup-shaped ends of copper or bronze are very rare, only about half a dozen being known, while fibulæ of gold are exceedingly common. The Coachford find, in which amber beads, gold fibulæ, and a copper or bronze fibula were all found together, shows that the objects were contemporary; and as this find may be placed at the end of the Bronze Age, it shows that these objects were in use at that period (fig. [62]). On the other hand, it is likely that their use began earlier and continued for a long period. These objects when made of gold are of two shapes—in the one case the expanded cups are large and flat and the connecting bar is bow-shaped, and is striated. These have been conjectured to have been used as brooches for fastening a garment; and their form was probably influenced by the Scandinavian spectacle-brooches, the bows of the latter having, in some cases, the same decoration. Except for the striations on the connecting link, the Irish so-called mamillary fibulæ are almost always plain; but Vallancey has figured two examples, one of which is engraved with triangular, and the other with lozenge, ornaments. There is also the well-known example in Trinity College, Dublin, in which the surfaces of the cups are completely covered with concentric circle ornament, the inside rims of the cups being decorated with hatched triangles, and the neckings of what may be called the handle, with chevron and herring-bone pattern, while along the back of the handle is an ornament of lozenges. In the second type these objects assume the shape of a bracelet; and the expanded ends are sometimes cup-shaped and sometimes plain. From the extreme similarity between the shape of these, whether in gold or bronze, to the so-called African manillas, it has been conjectured the Irish examples, like the African, may have been used as a medium of exchange; and on the whole it seems probable that such was the case, the dividing line between what were used for ornaments and what may have been used for exchange not being at all easily defined (figs. [63] and [64]).
Plate V.