Fig. 98.—Fragment of Fictile Ware, Lough Eyes. One-half size.
Fig. 99.—Fragment of Fictile Ware, Lough Eyes. One-half size.
Figs. [98] and [99] represent fragments of fictile ware also from Lough Eyes. [Fig. 98] has evidently been a deep-lipped vessel, and its “herring-bone” ornamentation is almost identical with the pattern that prevails most upon burial urns, and closely resembles that figured upon the vessel found in “One Man’s Cairn,” at Moytirra, county Mayo, as represented in Wilde’s Lough Corrib, p. 235: the same style of decoration is a characteristic of early bronze celts and other remains of the prehistoric period. [Fig. 99] presents the same style of ornamentation. It was apparently an eared vessel, of reddish-drab colour.
Fig. 100.
[Fig. 100] has evidently formed portion of what was a well-finished vessel. So far as at present known, its style of ornamentation is extremely rare, being identical with that seen upon portion of a decorated leathern shoe found in the crannog of Dowalton loch, Wigtonshire, and of which a representation is given at p. 49 of Munro’s Ancient Scottish Lake Dwellings. The fragments of vessels found in Lough Eyes were all hand-made, and well burnt, whilst the action of the fire would seem to have been greater on the interior than on the exterior. The material used was the sandy clay of the district, or perhaps the grit may have been added in order to give greater consistency to the paste. In most of the specimens there are distinct traces of this sand, and in the ruder examples particles of white stone of the size of very small peas project from the surface. The colour varies from light drab to a very dark brown, almost black, whilst some few are of a reddish hue—but all are unglazed. Many fragments of pottery have from time to time been disinterred from the site of the crannogs in the lake of Drumskimly, county Fermanagh: one of them is figured in the Journal Royal Hist. and Arch. Asso. of Ireland,[118] in connexion with a vase evidently of Pagan origin, from the “Bar” of Fintona, near Trillick, county Tyrone.
Fig. 101.—Stamped pattern on fragment of Fictile Ware from Drumskimly.