Swords and scabbards.
But Late Celtic art may be studied on many other objects besides those which have been already mentioned. Though British swords of the Early Iron Age are rare, and belong for the most part to dates subsequent to the Belgic invasion, a beautiful specimen of La Tène type was found in its bronze sheath in the village-stronghold of Hunsbury near Northampton;[988] and several have been recovered from the Thames, the scabbard of one being ornamented with a basket-pattern and open-work and an S-shaped scroll, another with transverse bars like examples from La Tène and Somme Bionne.[989] Late Celtic swords, which invariably had bronze handles,[990] were not, like those of the Bronze Age, leaf-shaped: their edges were nearly straight, and only tapered slightly near the point. Some late specimens, more than three feet long and with blunt points, intended not for thrusting but cutting, correspond to the description of Tacitus;[991] but others are much shorter. A dagger-sheath, found in Oxfordshire, is noticeable for its unusual decoration,—minute punched ornament between two pairs of ribs, which follow the outline of the edge, and not a single curve;[992] while a scabbard from the Thames at Wandsworth is adorned with mock spirals and lozenges enclosed between parallel ribs.[993]
Fig. 37. ½
Mirrors.
The reader who has been taught to regard his British forefathers as savages would not expect to find that they used mirrors; but although some of those whose pre-Roman age is certain are quite plain, a beautiful specimen which was found at Trelan Bahow in Cornwall, where to the last Roman influence was hardly felt, is probably representative of many which were made in the century before the Roman conquest, even though its own date may be later than the time of Claudius. Unlike the primitive mirrors, which were of iron mounted with bronze, it is made entirely of the brighter metal, and ornamented on the back with three circles, which enclose patterns of engraved scroll-work, filled with cross-hatching.[994]
Fig. 38. ½
Brooches and pins.
The fibula or brooch—the prototype of the modern safety-pin—which had come into use on the Continent in the earliest period of the Hallstatt culture, was not known in our island before the Iron Age. Brooches of the successive La Tène types, in all of which the pin was straight and the body curved like a bow, have been found in considerable numbers; one of the earliest, from Water Eaton in Oxfordshire, being engraved with scrolls and the familiar ring-and-dot pattern, while another, from Avebury, was set with coral.[995] Some brooches discovered in the stronghold of Hod Hill, near Blandford, had been modelled upon an Italian pattern of much earlier date.[996] Pins, however, were still used for fastening the dress. Plain ones, which may be as old as the fourth century before Christ, have been found at Hagbourne Hill in Berkshire, and on the site of a pile-dwelling at Hammersmith, and others, which are hardly distinguishable in shape from a modern scarf-pin and belong to the period immediately preceding the coming of the Romans, in various parts of Scotland;[997] but one which lay among the relics in a grave near Driffield was far more elaborately designed, its head being a miniature chariot-wheel with four spokes, curiously inlaid with shell.[998]