Fig. 193.—Bronze Ring.
Some of these ornaments remain, even up to the present day, in a perfect state of preservation. In an urn which was recovered from the settlement of Cortaillod, six specimens were discovered, the designs of which appeared quite as clearly as if they had only just been engraved. There is one point which must be remarked, because it forms an important datum in respect to the size of the Swiss people during the bronze epoch; this is, that most of the bracelets are so small that they could scarcely be worn nowadays. They must, therefore, have been adapted to very slender wrists—a fact which naturally leads us to believe that all the other limbs were small in proportion. This small size in the bracelets coincides with the diminutiveness of the sword-hilts which have been found in the lacustrine habitations of Switzerland.
Earrings, also, have been found in great numbers in the Swiss lakes. They are either metallic plates, or wires differently fashioned; all, however, testifying to a somewhat developed degree of taste.
Next after these trinkets and objects of adornment we must class certain articles of a peculiar character which must have been pendants or appendages to bracelets.
All these ornaments are, in fact, perforated at the top with a circular hole, intended, no doubt, to have a thread passed through it, by which it was hung round the neck. Some of them (fig. 194) are small triangular plates of metal, frequently ornamented with engraved designs; others (fig. 195), are in open-work, and include several branches, each terminated by a hole similar to that at the top. Some, again, assume the form of a ring not completely closed up (fig. 196), or rather, perhaps, of a crescent with wide and almost contiguous horns. In the same class may be placed the rings (fig. 197) to which were suspended movable ornaments in the shape of a double spiral.
Fig. 194.—Bronze Pendant, from the Lacustrine Habitations of Switzerland.