CHAPTER XX.
VESSELS, CALDRONS, ETC.
Of the various forms of fictile vessels which were in use at the same period as daggers and other weapons formed of bronze, it is not the place here to speak. Much has already been written on the subject, not only in various memoirs which have appeared in the proceedings of our different Antiquarian and Archæological Societies, but also in several standard archæological works. For the pottery found in the tumuli of this country I would more particularly refer to Canon Greenwell’s “British Barrows,” and to Dr. Thurnam’s “Paper on the Barrows of Wiltshire,” published in the Archæologia.[1587] Both these authors agree that none of the pottery from the barrows has been made upon the wheel. The greater part of the fictile ware with which we are acquainted was used for sepulchral purposes, and there appears good reason for supposing that much of it was manufactured expressly for the dead, and not for the living. Still there are a certain number of examples known of what has been termed culinary pottery, some of which have been found in barrows, and some in the remains of dwellings of the Bronze Period. This pottery, unlike the sepulchral, is devoid of ornament, and is well burnt, “plain, strong, and useful,” but it is also made by hand. Some of the pottery from the Swiss Lake-dwellings is, however, ornamented in various ways, but the potter’s wheel does not seem to have been in use.[1588] And yet, in more than one instance, there have been found in barrows in the South of England weapons of bronze, accompanied by vessels of amber and of shale, which have all the appearance of having been turned in a lathe. Of some of these vessels I have given figures in my “Ancient Stone Implements,”[1589] and also stated the particulars of the discoveries. I have also mentioned the discovery of a gold cup in a barrow at Rillaton, Cornwall, which was accompanied by what appears to have been a bronze dagger.[1590] As this vessel is of metal, I have here reproduced the cut as Fig. 509. It seems to me probable that the same kind of vessel which was made in the nobler metal may also prove to have been made in bronze, although as yet no examples have been discovered. The hanging cups of bronze of which many have been found in Scandinavia, and at least one example in Switzerland, are at present not known to have been discovered within the British Isles.
Bottom of cup.
Fig. 509.—Golden Cup. Rillaton. Height, 3¼ inches.
It was probably not until nearly the close of the Bronze Period that the art was discovered of hammering out bronze into sufficiently large and thin laminæ for the manufacture of cups and vessels. It would be impossible to cast the metal so thin as even that employed for shields, and before ingots or flat plates, like those already mentioned at page 402, could be thus drawn out, an acquaintance with some process of annealing must have been gained. It is a remarkable fact that the same process which has the effect of hardening steel has exactly the contrary effect on copper, and to some extent on bronze. Steel when heated to redness and then dipped in cold water becomes so intensely hard, that tools treated in this manner have to be somewhat tempered, or softened by heat, before they can safely be used; while to soften copper the usual method adopted is to make it red-hot and dip it in cold water. In whatever way the metal was drawn out, some of the large vessels of the transitional period between Bronze and Iron, such as those from Hallstatt, are wonderful examples of skill in working bronze.
Almost the only bronze vessel found in a barrow in England had an iron handle to it, showing that it could not belong to the Bronze Age properly so called. It is, indeed, somewhat doubtful whether it accompanied an interment. In the centre of a low mound near Wetton,[1591] Staffordshire, about a foot below the surface, Mr. Bateman found “two very curious vessels,” one about four inches high, and of rather globular form, carved in sandstone, and at the distance of a foot from it the other, “a bronze pan or kettle four inches high and six inches in diameter, with a slender iron bow like a bucket handle. It has been first cast and then hammered, and is very slightly marked with horizontal ridges.” It was inverted, and above it were traces of decayed wood. There appear to have been some remains of burnt bones near the surface of the ground. This bronze vessel is somewhat like the lower part of an ordinary flower-pot in form. In Mr. Bateman’s Catalogue[1592] there is a note to the effect that this object is “probably Romano-British,” but I have thought it best to cite it.
Several caldrons made of thin bronze plates riveted together have been found in Scotland, in some instances in company with bronze weapons.
In Duddingston Loch,[1593] near Edinburgh, together with swords and spear-heads, were some bronze rings and staples similar in character to those attached to the rim of a large bronze caldron found at Farney,[1594] Ulster, but there is no record of any caldrons. Others of these rings are in the Antiquarian Museum at Edinburgh, two of which were found with the large caldron here figured (Fig. 510) in the Moss of Kincardine,[1595] near Stirling, in the year 1768. In this case no weapons appear to have been found. At the side is a broad band embossed with circles. This vessel is of large size, being 16 inches high, 16 inches across the mouth, and 25 inches in extreme diameter.