Save combs, very few articles for the toilet have been brought to light in Irish crannogs, compared with the numbers found in other countries: the accompanying engraving represents, however, what appears to be tweezers, 3 inches long, made of bronze, and decorated on the external surfaces with dot-and-circle pattern.[135] This, and the two following articles, are from Ballinderry. [Fig. 143], a pendant or amulet, ornamented with dots in circles (as represented in the engraving), is carved out of soft stone, and the inscription which it bore is so much defaced as to be now undefinable. It is 3 inches long, including the handle, or loop, for suspension, 1¼ inch wide, and about ⅝ inch thick. The inscription is at top, separated by a line from the ornamentation in the central part: the back is plain. [Fig. 144] is a flattish nodule of clay-slate iron ore: at one side, dots, each with two concentric circles in the shape of a double cross, scribed on it, surrounded by a border of similar ornamentation; on the other face, there are a number of the same circles, irregularly disposed (as shown in [fig. 144]), and, at one side of it, a runic-like scribing. The stone measures 3 inches by 2½, and is about 1½ inches thick. It is, to a certain extent, polished.[136]
Ornamentation on [fig. 144].
Fig. 145.—Bronze Amulet, or Ornament, from Lisnacroghera.
[Fig. 145], found in the crannog of Lisnacroghera is a small bronze object, considered by W. F. Wakeman to have been an amulet: “the figures which it bears are curvilinear examples of a symbol known to antiquarians as the swastica. There can be little or no question as to the eastern origin of this form of cross.”[137]
From the tenacity with which craftsmen adhered to ancient designs or patterns, it is difficult to assign even an approximate date to many remains of articles suitable for personal decoration; however, any brooch, pin, or other object, upon which interlacing tracery is displayed, should not be referred to a period antecedent to the introduction of Christianity into Ireland.