A Scottish specimen of the same character as Fig. 462 (9 inches), found at Tarves, Aberdeenshire, together with bronze swords, is in the same collection. The head is 1⅜ inches in diameter. Another of the same type from Ireland[1440] is said to have had the cone originally gilt.
The head of another, which was found with a number of bronze swords at Edinburgh,[1441] is shown in Fig. 464. This discovery seems to prove that the pins of this type belong to quite the latter part of the Bronze Period.
Pins with flat heads turned over so as to be parallel with their stems are of common occurrence in Denmark.[1442] They are usually ornamented with concentric ribs, and the heads are sometimes plated with gold. The stems are also often decorated.
———— Fig. 464.—Edinburgh. 1/1 ———— Fig. 465.—Ireland. ½
Another form of pin has a cup-shaped head, not unlike the termination of the large gold clasps, like drawer-handles, so frequently found in Ireland. One of these is shown in Fig. 465, borrowed from Wilde.[1443]
An example of this kind was found in the Heathery Burn Cave. Another pin of this type, 10⅛ inches long, with the cup-shaped head ⅞ inch in diameter and ½ inch deep, with a small cone projecting in the bottom of the cup, was found with a bronze sword and two spear-heads in peat near the Point of Sleat,[1444] Skye.
Sir W. Wilde has given figures of numerous other types of pins, but they nearly all belong to a later period than that of which I am treating. That from a brooch at Bowermadden, Caithness, engraved in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland,[1445] is also of later date. Altogether the subject of pins belonging to the Bronze Age in the British Islands is one of which, in the present state of our knowledge, it is difficult to treat satisfactorily, so few of the more highly developed types having been found in actual association with other bronze relics. In England especially the rarity of bronze pins, as compared, for instance, with their abundance in the Lake-dwellings of Southern Europe, is very striking. As will subsequently be seen, there is nearly as great a scarcity of bracelets and of some other ornaments. It may be that for personal decorations the jet and amber, which during our Bronze Age were so much in fashion for ornaments, suited the native taste better than decorations manufactured from the same metal as that which served for tools and weapons; and that when metal was used gold had the preference. At the same time, for useful articles, such as some kinds of pins, bronze may well have served, and it is to be observed that no pins decorated with gold have as yet been found with bronze weapons in Britain, though they have occurred in other countries.