Smaller personal ornaments were also made of bronze, and occur among the works of a later period frequently characterized by great beauty of form and delicacy of ornament. The woodcut represents a bronze ring-fibula, of simple but somewhat peculiar design, and a spiral bronze ring, both the size of the originals. They were found about nine years since, during the construction of a new road leading from Granton Pier to Edinburgh, in a small stone cist, distant only about twenty yards from the sea-shore. It contained two skeletons, which from the position of the bones and the square and circumscribed form of the cist, appeared to have been interred in a sitting posture. Mr. C. R. Smith has figured a bronze fibula of the same type, though of ruder workmanship, among the numerous relics pertaining to various periods found at Richborough in Kent.[393] Several examples of the spiral finger-ring have been found in Britain with remains of different periods. They are also known to northern antiquaries among the older relics of Denmark and Sweden. This may indeed be regarded as one of the earliest forms of the ring, since it is only at a comparatively late period that we discover any traces of a knowledge of the art of soldering among the native metallurgists. A silver ring of the same early type, formed one of the personal ornaments in the celebrated Norrie's Law hoard, found on the opposite shores of the Frith of Forth.
Hair-pins and bodkins are another class of relics contained in the tombs of this period, generally of bronze, though they have occasionally been met with, and especially in Ireland, both of gold and silver, and richly set with jewels. Charles Kirkpatrick Sharp, Esq., has in his possession three magnificent ornaments of the latter class, formerly in the collection of Major Surr, such as might rival the most costly and elaborate works of the modern jeweller. Among the rarest and most curious forms of the bronze pin is that with a head hollowed like a cup; one of which has already been referred to, found along with a variety of other bronze relics, in a bog in the Isle of Skye, and now in the possession of Lord Macdonald. It exactly corresponds to an Irish example engraved in the Archæological Journal. Others have the head decorated with a variety of grooves and mouldings, and occasionally perforated, as if for attaching to them some pendulous ornament. Perforated bronze implements are likewise found, which it can hardly be doubted were used as needles; and among the rare and most perishable contents of the tumuli have occasionally been recovered small fragments of knitted or woven tissues, the productions of the primitive weaver whose bones crumble into dust on being exposed, and almost literally vanish before our eyes. Douglas engraves in the Nenia some interesting fragments of such ancient manufactures, of the herring-bone pattern, found on opening some tumuli in Greenwich Park. But by far the most perfect specimen I have ever seen was procured by Dr. Samuel Hibbert, about the year 1838, from some labourers who had found it on the chance exposure of a stone cist, while excavating for railway work, near Micklegate Bar, York. This valuable relic is now in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries. It appears to be a sleeve, or the covering for the leg, and somewhat resembles the hose worn by the south-country Scottish farmers, drawn over their ordinary dress as part of their riding gear. It has been knitted, a process which doubtless preceded the art of weaving, probably by many centuries. The fabric is still strong, and, in careful keeping, may long suffice to illustrate the domestic manufactures of the ancient Briton. This is one of the examples to which reference has been made in a former chapter, as shewing the source to which it is conceived some of the ornamental designs on the early British pottery are traceable; though the resemblance is less striking here than in some more imperfect specimens of such products of the primitive knitting needle or loom. The accompanying woodcut, representing a portion of the knitted fabric, will enable the reader who is familiar with the style of ornamentation on the pottery of the tumuli, to judge for himself how far this idea is justified by the correspondence traceable between them.
In 1786 a much more complete specimen was found, seventeen feet below the surface of an Irish bog in the county of Longford. It is described by Mr. Richard Lovell Edgeworth, in a Report to the Commissioners for improving the bogs in Ireland, as "a woollen coat of coarse but even net-work, exactly in the form of what is now called a spencer." Iron arrow-heads, large wooden bowls, some only half made, with what were supposed to be the remains of turning tools, lay alongside of it. The coat was presented by Mr. Edgeworth to the Society of Antiquaries, but is no longer known to exist. Possibly it rapidly decayed, as all such relies must be apt to do on exposure to the air; or perchance its history was lost sight of, in which case its value would appear very slight in the estimation of the ordinary class of curators.
In 1822 Professor Stuart of Aberdeen communicated to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland an interesting account of the opening of a tumulus at Fetteresso, Kincardineshire.[394] Within it was found a stone cist about four feet in length, containing a skeleton, with the legs so bent back that the knees almost touched the lower end of the cist. The bottom was strewed with round sea pebbles from the neighbouring beach. Above this appeared some vegetable substance, in which the body had been imbedded, and over that, covering the whole, a tissue of wrought net-work, beautifully executed, but which, along with all the other contents, crumbled to dust soon after being exposed to the air. A great number of small black balls were found surrounding the body, plainly vegetable, and described as closely resembling acorns. At the top of the cist there seemed to have been placed a fresh sod or turf, which still retained the impression of the head that had been pillowed on it ages before, though no parts of the skull, nor even any of the teeth, were found. Some of the hair, however, four or five inches long, and of an auburn colour, still remained, and over the breast were seen the remains of a small box of an oval shape, apparently of wood elegantly carved; but this also speedily crumbled to powder. In the month of November 1847, another cist was discovered about an hundred yards to the south of the Fetteresso tumulus, which may with much probability be assumed as a female grave; and if so, adds another to the examples already noted of the occurrence of the Scottish sepulchral urn accompanying female remains. The cist measured only three feet in length, by two feet in breadth, and contained a human skeleton which appeared to have been laid on the right side with the face to the south. The limbs were bent according to the usual disposition of the body in the circumscribed cist, and one of the leg bones seemed to have been broken. A rude urn, about six inches deep, lay as if it had been folded in the arms of the deceased, and upwards of a hundred jet beads, which had no doubt formed a necklace, were found beside the breast.
FOOTNOTES:
[338] Solinus, c. xxii. Bede Hist. lib. i. c. 1. Collectanea Antiqua, C. R. Smith, vol. i. p. 174.
[339] Sinclair's Stat. Acc. vol. i. p. 330.