Fig. 193.—Specimens of Pottery of the Bronze Age. Nos. 1 and 2 = 1⁄4, and the rest = 1⁄2 real size.
The spindle-whorls of the Bronze Age are generally made of earthenware, and often highly ornamented, thus showing the improved taste of the people.
Among the more notable objects peculiar to the Bronze Age are certain polished stones, in the form of circular or oval discs with a marginal groove ([Fig. 194]). These stones were formerly reckoned to be sling-stones, but now they are generally recognised as potters' implements, used probably for fashioning the bases of the dishes.
Fig. 194.—
Discoidal
Stone (1⁄3).
There are many problems worthy of careful consideration suggested by the facts disclosed in these pages, but in this rapid sketch I can only refer to one or two in a cursory manner. First of all we have to inquire if the lake-dwellers practised religious rites. In support of the affirmative to this inquiry there are some indications, and the few objects capable of such an interpretation are illustrated on [Fig. 195]. In this category I include the following:—
(1) The highly ornamented wooden sticks or bâtons de commandement, from Castione (Nos. 1 and 2), and from Moeringen (No. 3). The only perfect example (No. 1) is rather less than sixteen inches in length, and the others do not appear to have been larger.
(2) The four remarkable bronze tubes with ring appendages from Lake Bourget (Gresine). These, though differing in size and some other respects, are all of one type, and were clearly conceived and wrought out on a uniform plan, and for some specific purpose. The most perfect of these objects ([see page 102]) appears to be complete, and consists of an ornamental tube, surrounded by three rows of fixed loops, three in each row, placed at regular distances, and to each loop there are three loose rings appended, as shown in the illustration (No. 4). The two previously illustrated ([Fig. 21], Nos. 1 and 2) have only one ring in each of the nine loops, and it does not appear that there had been any more. The fourth, now preserved in the Museum at Chambery, is nearly as large as the perfect one; but it is greatly worn, and retains now only a few rings, some of the loops being broken or worn through. It is illustrated by Perrin. (B. 282, Pl. lxiv. 1.)