Fig. 157.—Stone Ball found at Mountblairy, Banffshire.
Fig. 158.—Carved Stone found at Muckle Geddes, Nairn.
Many of these balls, however, have their discs destitute of ornament. But whether decorated or undecorated, they usually present the strongly marked typical form, which varies from the approximately circular with rounded discs, like the examples shown from Dumfriesshire (Fig. [155]), and Dudwick, in Aberdeenshire (Fig. [156]), to those from Mountblairy, in Banffshire (Fig. [157]), and Muckle Geddes, in Nairnshire (Fig. [158]), which take the form of a cylindrical axis with flat-ended cylindrical projections radiating round its circumference.
In all their varieties of form, these objects present certain features which are suggestive of a possible use as weapons. Their ornate character, their specialty of form, which renders them capable of being swung by thongs or bound to the end of a handle, and the fact that one example is pierced by a hole, are indications in this direction. Although there is no conclusive evidence of the fact, it is at least conceivable that they may have been mounted as mace-heads similar to those metal mace-heads with pyramidal projections which are found occasionally among the relics of the Iron Age, and continued in use in the early Middle Ages, and similar, at least in appearance, to the mace-heads shown (Fig. [159]) in the hands of unmounted men in the Bayeux Tapestry.[[71]]
Fig. 159.—Unmounted men armed with maces. From the Bayeux Tapestry.
But whatever may have been their special purpose or the precise manner of their use, it is of greater importance for the purposes of our inquiry that we should be able to determine their typical relations and ascertain the area to which they are confined. It is clear that they possess a typical form which has no distinctly definable relations with any other class of stone implements. The type is so peculiar and so strongly marked, that if it exists anywhere out of Scotland we should probably have known of its existence. But, with a single exception, said to have been found in Ireland, there is no record that I can discover of the occurrence of any specimen beyond the bounds of Scotland. Within that area it is widely diffused. There are so many specimens in private hands of whose localities we possess no record, that it is impossible to ascertain with any degree of precision the relative frequency of their occurrence in different districts of the country. But their known range comprehends an area which is but little short of the whole area of Scotland. They are most abundant in the north-eastern districts, but they occur as far north as Caithness and Orkney, as far south as Dumfries, and as far west as Argyle. Whether they belong wholly to the Pagan time or partly to the Christian period, it is clear that the prevailing features of their decoration, though distinctly Celtic in character, are not those of the fully developed style of Celtic ornament which prevailed throughout the early Christian time. Nor does it possess the most striking characteristics of the decoration of these objects in metal, of which so many characteristic examples have now been given. But the zoomorphic ending of the spiral pattern on the bronze ball from Lanarkshire, and the double and escaping spirals of the Towie, Elgin, and Glasterlaw specimens, are sufficiently distinctive to claim for them a place in the same system of design which produced the peculiar patterns of the Pagan period, and developed from them the more elaborate systems of decoration so widely applied in the early Christian art of Scotland.
In the whole group of objects described in this Lecture we have a series of examples of the art which characterised the Iron Age Paganism of Scotland—the period that lies beyond the Christian time and reaches back until it merges into the Bronze Age culture. The outcome of the whole examination thus appears to be that the early Christian art of Scotland, although it had close relations with that of Ireland, was nevertheless based upon a pre-existing system of Pagan art peculiar to the area of the British Isles. Although remotely connected with certain developments of art that appear obscurely among the Iron Age relics of Central and Southern Europe, this special system of design received its highest development and attained its full maturity in the British Isles alone. There it became a distinctive school of decoration, exhibiting different aspects in England, Scotland, and Ireland, and attaining in each of these areas a separate development marked by a distinct individuality of character. Its manifestations in Scotland are those of a peculiar and highly characteristic style, confining itself to curvilinear forms, combining its simple elements in a manner that is neither rigidly geometric nor fettered by conditions of absolute symmetry, but producing by the variation and rhythmic recurrence of its peculiar features a series of designs characterised by beauty of form, balance of parts, and harmonious combination. It differs from the art of the Christian time, inasmuch as it presents no intermixture of forms and features that are common to Greek, Roman, or Etruscan art—no interlaced work, no meanders or key-patterns, or fretwork, and no similitude of foliage, or foliageous scrolls. It is zoomorphic, but its zoomorphism is chiefly apparent in the forms of the objects, and seldom exhibited in the designs with which they are decorated. It is more partial to the modelling of solid forms of ornament than to the elaborate enrichment of surface by intricate engraved work, and these solid forms of its surface ornament rarely become zoomorphic. When engraved or chased ornamentation is employed, it is used chiefly to produce broad effects by the contrast between plain spaces in the design and spaces filled with punctulations or chequers of short parallel lines. We find this peculiar style of art employed chiefly in the decoration of metal-work in bronze and gold. The objects so decorated are personal ornaments, arms, harness, and horse-trappings. The technical skill displayed in the fabrication and finish of these objects is great, and the quality of the art displayed in their decoration is high. There is implied in their production a special dexterity in preparing moulds and compounding alloys, in casting, chasing, and engraving, in the polishing and setting of jewels, in the composition and fixing of enamels. But there is further implied an artistic spirit controlling and combining the results of these various processes, giving elegance and beauty of a peculiar cast to the forms of the objects, and increasing the intrinsic elegance and beauty of the form by the harmonious blending of its special varieties of surface decoration, in which forms that are solidly modelled are intermingled with chased or engraved patterns and spaces filled with colour. A style of art characterised by such originality of design and excellence of execution must count for something in the history of a nation’s progress, must have its place to fill in the history of art itself, when once we have begun to realise the fact that art was not the exclusive privilege of classic antiquity.