The Bronze Age in Ireland Part 6

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE V. Gold Fibulae. _p. 68._]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 64.--Sixteenth-century bronze casting from Benin, showing natives holding manillas (after Read and Dalton, _Antiquities of the City of Benin_).]

RING-MONEY

The question of a medium of exchange leads us to mention the very small gold penannular rings, the largest being about an inch in diameter, frequently found in Ireland, which are known as 'ring-money.' There are fifty-six in the National Collection; and a find made near Belfast of a socketed bronze celt in a.s.sociation with some of these objects shows they were in use during the late Bronze Age.[23] Attention has been called to the similarity of these Irish gold rings to the penannular copper rings plated with gold often found in early j.a.panese burials.[24]

[23] Archaeologia, lxi, p. 153.

[24] See Munro, "Pre-historic j.a.pan," p. 435, fig. 276.

Many attempts have been made to equate the weights of a series of these rings with some known standard; and in his valuable work "The Origin of Currency and Weight Standards," Professor Ridgeway devotes several pages of his Appendix C to a discussion of the subject, and gives a table of the weights arrived at by grouping the rings in multiples of 18.

While there can be no reasonable doubt that these objects were used as a medium of exchange, we are not inclined, in the absence of literary evidence, to go any further into the question of what standard they may represent. Some of these rings are evidently forgeries of ancient times, as they are composed of bronze rings covered with a thin plate of gold. The rings as a rule are plain; but some are ornamented with small strips of darker metal let into the gold, and two examples are twisted like small torcs.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE VI. Gold Ring-Money. _p. 70._]

CHAPTER VII

LEAF-SHAPED SWORDS

A number of leaf-shaped bronze swords have been found in Ireland. They may be roughly divided into two types, those with notches just below the blade and above the handle, and those that are plain. The latter are the earlier, and belong to the late Bronze Age; the former correspond to the Continental swords of the Hallstatt period. The leaf-shaped type was the typical Bronze-Age sword of western and northern Europe. It was developed from the dagger, and, like it, was a thrusting rather than a cutting weapon. The handle is cast in one piece with the blade, and has rivet-holes, and in some cases a slit for the attachment of the hilt, which was no doubt formed of bone or horn plates. The pommel was probably globular, and formed of lead or some heavy material. A bronze sword of this type was found in a house on the Akropolis at Mycenae by Schliemann, and it can be dated at about 1200 B.C.[25] The discovery of this sword may be explained either as the result of a raid, or as showing that invaders from the north had reached Greece as early as this date. A leaf-shaped sword has been noticed on one of the clay tablets dated as late Minoan II, and in one of the stone slabs from over the fifth shaft grave at Mycenae, which represents a figure in a chariot attacking a man on foot, the latter is armed with a leaf-shaped sword.[26] In any case it gives us a date for the period when these swords were in common use in western Europe.

The type with notches below the blade has a tendency to become straighter at the sides, and to lose its leaf-shaped form. The use of the notches is not apparent, but it has been thought that the scabbards at that time were made of wood and were liable to shrink from exposure to weather, and that this may have prevented the sword from being thrust home, so that the edge was cut off by the notches slightly below the handle to avoid cutting the hand. The handle end of this latter type very frequently a.s.sumes a form like a fish's tail.

These swords develop into the iron swords of the Hallstatt period, of which so far only one Irish example has been found. A bronze sword of the notched type formed part of the Dowris h.o.a.rd, and is figured in the "British Museum Bronze-Age Guide," plate ii. Two remarkably fine specimens of this type were found in 1912 with a socketed spear-head at Tempo, County Fermanagh.

[25] Naue, "Die Vorromischen Schwerter," pp. 12 and 20.

[26] See Burrowes, "Discoveries in Crete," p. 183.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 65.--Leaf-shaped bronze swords, found with a spear-head at Tempo, Co. Fermanagh.]

No moulds for casting leaf-shaped swords of either type have been found in Ireland; and it is therefore probable that at the time they were in use sand-casting had replaced casting from stone moulds. The scabbards of the leaf-shaped swords were made of wood or leather, protected by a ferule or chape of bronze, which was fastened to it by rivets; the point of the weapon does not seem to have reached the end of the sheath. There are several examples of bronze chapes in the Royal Irish Academy's collection, and they display a considerable variety of design. Some are long and tubular in shape (fig. 66), while others are of the winged or boat-shaped type which is found on the Continent (fig. 67). Others again are of a small and simple type. The rivet-holes for the attachment of the sheaths can be seen in nearly all the Irish specimens. The casting of these objects shows a good deal of skill, as the metal is very thin. The winged variety are probably the latest, as they have been found with iron swords of Hallstatt type on the Continent.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 66.--Bronze chapes.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 67.--Winged chapes.]

SHIELDS

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 68.--Bronze shield, found at Lough Gur, Co. Limerick.]

Two circular shields or bucklers of bronze have been found in Ireland.

There is only one in the National Collection, the fine shield discovered at Lough Gur, County Limerick. There is, however, a small shield of bronze ornamented with large bosses in the British Museum which was found at Athenry, County Galway.[27] These bronze shields have never been found in the British Islands with any objects which would give any definite clue to their date; but they are generally referred to the late Bronze Age. They belong to a common type, being decorated with numerous bands of small bosses separated by concentric circles. They appear to have been hammered out.

[27] "British Museum Bronze-Age Guide," p. 30.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 69.--Alder-wood shield, found in Co. Leitrim.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 70.--Front and back of leather shield, found at Clonbrin, Co. Longford.]

There are two other shields of great interest in the National Collection. One is the remarkable alder-wood shield found 10 feet deep in a bog in 1863 at Annadale, County Leitrim. This shield is oval in shape, and has a central boss and seven raised ribs. It will be noticed that the ribs show an indentation at one side; but too much emphasis must not be placed on this, as the shield shrank a good deal after its removal from the bog, and the alteration may be due to this. This shield has a handle at the back. It is interesting to note that 'sciath,' one of the Irish words for 'shield,' denotes 'alder.'

The next is the leather shield found in 1908 at Clonbrin, County Longford, and presented to the Royal Irish Academy's collection by Colonel W. H. King-Harman. This truly remarkable shield, the only one of its kind in Europe, is made of a solid piece of leather nearly 1/4 of an inch thick, and measures 20-1/2 inches in length by 19-1/2 inches across. It has an oblong centre boss pressed out of the leather and covered with an ornamental cap of fine leather laced on to it. The boss is encircled by three ribs, the inner one being gapped, and the two others having a curious re-entrant angle. The shield has twenty-four small round bosses on it which resemble those on the bronze shields. There is a leather handle which was laced on to the back. This shield appears to be complete as it stands, as there is no sign of any wooden supports at the back, nor is it easy to see how such supports could have been attached to it. According to Polybius round shields of bulls' hide were used by the Roman equites in the early days of Roman history.

The round shield of the late Bronze Age was succeeded by the oval shield which may be taken as partly transitional to the oblong shield of Southern Europe and also of the late Celtic type found in Britain.

The date, therefore, of this Irish leather shield is probably to be placed in the Early Iron period.

CHAPTER VIII

TORCS

There are twenty-four golden torcs of various types in the National Collection and one of bronze; but the Irish provenance of the latter is doubtful.

The best known are the two magnificent gold torcs found in the side of one of the raths at Tara, and these belong to a type that has been found in England and France, of which the best known examples are those found at Yeovil, Somerset,[28] and Grunty Fen, Cambridge.[29] A torc of this type was also found by Schliemann in the royal treasury in the second city of Troy. This find has led to a good deal of speculative opinions varying as to whether the model of the torc was imported into Ireland from the south, or whether the Irish gold could have reached the Mediterranean in pre-Mycenaean times.[30] Torcs of this type were made by folding two thin ribbons of gold along the middle at a right angle; they were then attached with some kind of resinous flux, apex to apex, and twisted together. In some cases, instead of two folded ribbons a flat one and two halves of another were used, after being fastened together, the twisting being done in the same way. In some of the Irish examples the body of the torc is plain, or was grooved to simulate the appearance of the twisted torc.

A peculiar feature of these torcs is the large hooks with which they are provided. It must be noted that whereas twisted torcs of bronze are fairly common in England and France there is only one bronze torc in the Irish National Collection, and, as mentioned above, the provenance of this is doubtful. The dating of these twisted torcs is a matter of difficulty, as there are only two instances of their having been found in a.s.sociation with bronze objects, one in the case of the Grunty Fen torc which was discovered with three bronze palstaves, and another found at Fresne la Mere, near Falaise, Normandy, which was found with a bronze razor and other objects of bronze. Such evidence as exists, therefore, would place them in the late Bronze Age, probably somewhere about 1000 B.C., but certain varieties of torcs, as we shall see, continued in use as late as the first century. The area of distribution of gold torcs of the Tara type in Ireland, England and France is very limited, none having been found in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, Holland, or Spain and Portugal.[31] It has been suggested that the gold of which all these torcs were composed came from the Wicklow Mountains,[32] and in view of the extreme wealth of Ireland in gold, as evinced by the number of gold ornaments which are still constantly found, this may be considered probable.

[28] Proceedings Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society, vol. lv, 1909, pt. ii, pp. 66-84.

[29] Cambridge Antiquarian Society's Communications, vol. xii, p. 96.

[30] Dechelette, "Manuel d'Archeologie," vol. ii, p. 355, note.

[31] Congres Archeologique Francais, Beauvais, 1905, p. 294.

[32] Proc. Soc. Antiquaries of London, second series, vol. xxiv, p. 42.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE VII. Gold Torcs from Tara and elsewhere.

_p. 78._]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE VIII. Gold Torcs. _p. 78._]

Among the other types of gold torcs are two splendid examples, one of which appears to have been prepared for twisting and left unfinished, while the other is in a complete state (Plate VIII).

Small torcs made by twisting a plain ribbon are fairly common, and some of these are so small that they must have been used as bracelets.

In later times the torc was the distinguishing ornament of the Celt, and there are many allusions to torcs in cla.s.sical writers. In 223 B.C., when Flaminius Nepos gained his victory over the Gauls on the Addua, it is related that instead of the Gauls dedicating, as they had intended, a torc made from the Roman spoils to their G.o.d of war, the Romans erected a Roman trophy to Jupiter made from Gaulish torcs.

The name of the Torquati, a family of the Manlia Gens, was derived from their ancestor, T. Manlius, who, having slain a gigantic Gaul in B.C. 361, took the torc from the dead body, and placed it round his neck.

The famous statue of the Dying Gaul preserved in the Capitol at Rome shows a torc on the warrior's neck. This is one of a series of statues set up by the Greeks of Pergamos to celebrate their struggle with, and first victory over, the Gauls of Asia Minor, with whom they came in contact from about 240 to 160 B.C. The twisted torc appears to have been replaced in Ireland about the second century B.C. by the plain torc, which was probably introduced from Gaul. The fine gold torc from Clonmacnois (Plate IX), with La Tene decoration, is a good example of these torcs, and is almost identical with one from the Marne district now preserved in the St. Germain Museum. Probably the finest La Tene torc in existence is that found in the celebrated Broighter find, which is richly decorated with La Tene ornament (Plate IX, the inner torc).