Part 12

In the parish of Balmaclellan, in Kirkcudbright, a number of bronze articles were found in draining a bog. It is stated that they were found about 3 feet under the surface in four parcels, each wrapped in coarse linen cloth. Close by them the upper stone of a quern was also found. The quern stone (Fig. 102) is ornamented, but the ornament possesses none of the distinctive features of the decoration of the bronzes. They consisted of a circular mirror with handle, and a number of thin plates of bronze, some being long narrow bands, others curved and cut into various shapes. The mirror (Fig. 103) is of the form so commonly seen on the sculptured monuments of the Celtic Christian time in Scotland. The circular part is 8 inches in diameter, and the handle 5 inches in projection from the circumference of the circular part. [Illustration: Fig. 103.—Bronze Mirror found at Balmaclellan (8 inches in diameter)] The body of the mirror is a thin plate of bronze, surrounded by a plain-rolled edging. The handle, which is also a thin plate of bronze similarly edged, is attached to the circular plate by rivets, and the junction is concealed by a finely-ornamented plate (Fig. 104), presenting a pattern composed of those peculiar raised surfaces formed by the meeting of curves rising from the flat at different angles, and traversing the ground also in curves, which converge and diverge in a manner pleasing to the eye, but difficult to describe. The upper part of this ornamental plate is tri-lobate, the lobes bounded by curves of peculiar form, and bordered by an edging of studs embossed on the metal. [Illustration: Fig. 104.—Ornamental Plate of thin bronze, embossed, at the junction of the mirror with its handle (actual size).] The central ornament of each lobe is a circular device, with a central boss surrounded by a circle of oval-raised surfaces, and presenting a nearer approach to the effect of a floral decoration than is usually seen in this style of ornament. The handle of the mirror is pierced with three segmental openings formed of the curves of the divergent spiral. A crescentic collar-shaped plate of bronze (Fig. 105), 13 inches in diameter, and 2 inches in the width of the band, is decorated with a chased pattern of similarly convergent and divergent curves, the spaces enclosed by the curves being hatched with parallel lines. [Illustration: Fig. 105.—Half of the Crescentic Collar-like Plate of Bronze found with the Mirror at Balmaclellan.] The remaining plates (Fig. 106), of which there are a considerable number, are of various forms. Some have straight outer edges, and the interior edges cut into curves, meeting each other with long and short points; others are triangular pieces, with one convex and two concave edges, while others again are long narrow bands with straight edges. They are all bordered with an edging of thin metal doubled over and pinned on, and they seem themselves to have been attached by pins to some object of a more perishable nature. What their precise purpose was—whether they were mountings on wood or leather, or whether they formed parts of some object constructed wholly of thin plates of metal (as the two objects previously described are constructed)—it is not necessary to conjecture since the form and condition of the objects themselves give no definite indications on these points. Their being wrapped in cloth in separate parcels may imply that they are not all parts of the same object, and their local association with objects of such incongruous purposes, as a mirror and a quern, may imply that they were not necessarily even associated with each other when in use. There is no evidence that the deposit was in any way connected with sepulture, although the mirror of this form, and bearing precisely the same kind of ornamentation, has been found associated with interments of Pagan time in Britain.

At Mount Batten, near Plymouth, a series of graves were discovered in 1865,[62] which presented phenomena of a very peculiar character. They were pits 4 or 4½ feet in depth, one foot of which only was soil, the remaining three feet being sunk in the disintegrated surface of the underlying rock. They were very numerous, sometimes close together and irregular in form, and had mostly been refilled with the materials removed in making them. They contained fragments of pottery of black and yellow ware, and wheel-made. Some fragments of glass vessels, portions of iron implements, among which were a pair of shears, bronze rings and fibulæ, and jointed armlets of bronze, with a knife or dagger in a sheath of thin bronze, were also found. But the most interesting part of the discovery was the circular plate of a bronze mirror (Fig. 107), 8 inches in diameter, which lay on its face at the bottom of one of the graves. It is a very thin plate of bronze, with a rolled edging. The back is ornamented with three circular engraved patterns of spirals formed of the same peculiar curves, converging and diverging, the spaces between the lines forming the curves being filled with hatching. So closely do the patterns resemble those on the collar-like object from Balmaclellan, and so similar is the style of the work, that the conclusion is unavoidable that the two objects belong to the same school of art, and cannot be very far apart in time.

Footnote 62:

Described in a paper by Mr. Spence Bate in _Archæologia_, vol. xl. p. 500.

Another mirror, which is almost precisely similar in form and ornamentation, was found in 1833 at Trelan Bahow,[63] in the parish of St. Keverne, Cornwall. In the course of the construction of a new road a group of graves was discovered. Each grave was formed of six slabs set on edge, two forming each side of the grave, and one at each end. They were from two to three feet under the surface, and covered with large stones. In one of the cists, apparently with the remains of a female, there were found the bronze mirror almost perfect, some rings of bronze or brass, fragments of fibulæ, and other personal ornaments, and several beads of variegated glass. The mirror is circular, 6 inches in diameter, with a looped handle 2½ inches in length. The back of the mirror plate has a marginal ornament of triangular spaces alternately plain, and filled with short parallel lines struck by a punch. Across the central line of the mirror are two circles enclosing smaller circles and curvilinear spaces alternately plain, and filled with punched lines in a style similar to that of the ornament on the collar-like object from Balmaclellan.

Footnote 63:

_Archæological Journal_, vol. xxx. p. 268.

Another mirror of the same character, found at Birdlip on the edge of the Cottiswold Hills, near Gloucester, in 1879,[64] exhibits the same style of ornamentation. Three cists were discovered in a group, containing skeletons placed with their feet to the south. The first and third were apparently adult males, and with them no manufactured objects were found. The second was apparently a female. On the face of the skeleton was placed a large bronze bowl, 9 inches in diameter, inverted; and among the other contents of the cist were a smaller bowl of bronze, 4 inches in diameter, a harp-shaped fibula of silver plated with gold, a bracelet and four rings of brass, a key-handle, a knife-handle terminating in the head of an animal, a string of large beads of jet and amber, and a mirror made of a massive bronze plate, weighing 38¼ ounces. The back of the mirror (Fig. 108), which is of a slightly oval form, measures 10⅝ inches in its greatest, and 9¾ inches in its least, diameter, and is beautifully ornamented with a triple scroll-like pattern of flowing curvilinear spaces filled with hatchings of short lines in chequers, or groups disposed at right angles to each other. The pattern is so managed that the hatched spaces and the plain spaces alternate and form symmetrical arrangements, producing a pleasing effect. At the lower part, where the handle supports the mirror, is a triple arrangement of trumpet-shaped scrolls in relief, enclosing spaces which are similarly decorated. The handle is elegantly formed from a prolongation of the marginal beading of the mirror, which gradually thickens towards the lower margin to trumpet-shaped endings on either side of the handle, which takes the form of a double-loop, drawn out from the marginal bead, and terminating in a ring partly filled by an ornamented disc.

Footnote 64:

_Proceedings of the Bristol and Gloucester Archæological Society_, vol. v. p. 137, and Plate XIV., from which the figure here given is copied by permission.

These mirrors all differ in their form and in the composition of the metal from Roman mirrors, and they differ in certain characteristics of their ornament still more widely from the Roman style. But the peculiar characteristics which form the special features of their decoration are identical with those of a large class of objects which we have now learned to recognise by the character of their art as distinctively Celtic.

The same character is exhibited by the ornamentation of a series of spoon-like objects[65] found in England and Ireland, of which Fig. 109 is a characteristic example. Four of these are in the National Museum, and though no specimens have yet been met with in Scotland, I notice them here, because their decoration is so nearly related to that of the Scottish school. In the case of the pair of these peculiar objects found in excavating for a quarry at Weston, near Bath, the backs of the circular projections or handles (Fig. 110) are ornamented with patterns of this character in relief. The front of the disc is ornamented with a series of circular concentric mouldings, and the bowl of the spoon is quartered by incised lines. It is a peculiarity of these objects, that though found in pairs, the two members of the pair, though similar, are not identical. In some cases it is apparent that they have even been cast in different moulds. Usually one of the pair has its bowl quartered by incised lines, while the other has a small hole pierced near the edge of the bowl. Another pair, also in the Museum, were found in 1861 in a railway cutting in Llanfair parish, Denbighshire. They are slightly smaller in size, and differ in the ornamentation of the front of their discs. One of them (Fig. 111, No. 2) is here shown along with the second of the Weston specimens.

Footnote 65:

These have been conjectured to be of Christian time, and to have been used in connection with the celebration of the Eucharist, but the evidence is insufficient to carry this conclusion. See the papers by Albert Way in _Archæological Journal_, vol. xxvi. p. 52; and by Rev. E. L. Barnwell in _Archæologia Cambrensis_, vol. viii. (Third Series) p. 208, and vol. x. p. 57.

The same characteristic style of art is seen in the decoration of a massive collar of cast bronze (Fig. 112), which was found in digging a well at Stitchell, in Roxburghshire, in 1747, and is now in the National Museum. Like the armlets found in the Plymouth graves, this collar is jointed, opening on a hinge in the centre, and fastening in front by a pin and socket. It is a very massive and heavy ornament, the width of the opening being 6 inches by 5, and the breadth of the flattened ring varying from 1¾ inch to ¼ inch. The character of the ornament is simple, but highly peculiar, and bearing a strong family likeness to the double escaping and divergent spirals of the later Celtic art. All the patterns are in relief and cast in the solid, except those on the two panels on either side of the central opening, which are in _repoussé_ on a thin plate of bronze fastened to the collar by pins at the four corners.

Closely akin to this jointed collar in the idea of its construction and the form of its ornament is an elegant armlet of thin bronze (Fig. 113), found in 1826 near Plunton Castle, in the parish of Borgue, in Kirkcudbright. It is of thin beaten bronze, 1½ inch wide and 2½ inches in diameter, and, like the collar, it is made to open on a hinge in the centre, and close by a pin and loops. It is ornamented by three raised mouldings, beaten up from the back, which pass round it horizontally, but these are concealed on either side of the hinges by two plates of thin bronze of quadrangular form, ornamented in _repoussé_ by trumpet-shaped ornaments connected by peculiar curves, and having studs placed in the concavities of the curves. These plates are fastened to the armlet at the four corners by pins, and bordered by a single row of small studs.

In the month of March 1806 a herd boy, passing along the side of the Shaw Hill, near the House of New Cairnmuir, in the parish of Kirkurd, Peeblesshire, saw something glitter in the ground, and on scraping the place with his foot he unearthed a hoard of gold objects, consisting of two twisted arm-rings, each weighing 8 oz. 12 dwt., a broken ring of the same form weighing 8 oz. 10 dwt., forty small studs, each weighing about half a sovereign, and a hollow spherical ornament weighing 4 oz. 5 dwt.—the bullion value of the whole being about £110. One of the twisted arm-rings passed into the possession of Sir George Montgomery of Macbiehill; the spherical ornament and two of the small studs were obtained by Mr. John Lawson of Cairnmuir and placed in the National Museum; the rest of the hoard is believed to have been melted. The three arm-rings are spirally twisted rods of gold, with flat circular ends bent round to encircle the arm. The studs or pellets are nearly spherical, about the size of a large pea, and marked on the surface with a cruciform ornament in relief. The spherical ornament (Fig. 114) has some resemblance to the pommel of a sword, although its form gives no obvious indication of its purpose. It is 2½ inches in length by 2 inches in width, and about 1¼ inch in thickness. It has been cast hollow, with an opening through the centre of the rounded part, and must have been made by a very skilful workman. One side of it is plain, the other ornamented in _repoussé_ work of great beauty. The style of the ornament is simple, elegant, and highly effective. The surface to be decorated is broken up into irregular spaces by a system of the peculiar curves, which are so characteristic of the style of art of the bronzes which have been already described. Some of these spaces are further ornamented by a peculiar pitting of the surface seen in some of the decorated stone balls (Fig. 146); others are raised in solid curves of the same peculiar form, while the interspaces follow the form of the object itself. Studs and prominences, with spirals in relief, are introduced to give emphasis to the general design, which commends itself at once to the eye of taste as one of the most fitly beautiful and unaffected forms of surface-decoration which could be applied to such a purpose.

In this group of objects in bronze and gold we have characteristic examples of the work of this early school of decorative art, which in some of its features bears certain relations to the work of the later school of Celtic art of the Christian time. But the elements of its decoration are fewer. It has no interlaced work and no fret—nothing but curves and spirals. It does not systematically break up its surfaces in panels, but distributes its decorative effects in spaces that are circular or oval, or bounded by intersecting curves. Its prevailing features are not the production of intricately symmetrical and geometrically regulated patterns, but the production of effects of balance and beauty by the rhythmic recurrence and variation of curves and spaces with solid forms which, though not symmetrical, are similar. Their characteristic curves, as seen in the outlines of their figures and the sections of their solid forms, are specially peculiar, while the marked preference for relief in metal-work is in striking contrast to the general prevalence of chased and engraved designs in the later school.

It is to this characteristic treatment of the decoration of their metal-work by this early school of Celtic art that Mr. Kemble refers in the following remarks:—“When, as is often the case in metal, this principle of the diverging spiral line is carried out in _repoussé_—when you have those singularly beautiful curves, more beautiful perhaps in the parts that are not seen than in those that meet the eye, and whose beauty is revealed in shadow more than in form—you have a peculiar characteristic, a form of beauty which belongs to no nation but our own, and to no portion of our nation but the Celtic portion. It deals with curves which are not arcs of a circle; its figures are not of the class we usually designate by the term geometrical; and above all it calls in the aid of enamel to perfect its work—not _cloisonné_ like the enamel of the East; not mosaic work of tesseræ like so many so-called enamels of the Romans, but enamel _champléve_ as Philostratus has described the island barbarians to have invented it. The engraved spiral line, with double winding, is found from America to the Baltic, from Greece to Norway, but the divergent spiral _repoussé_ in metal and ornamented with _champléve_ enamel, is found in these British Islands alone.”

* * * * *

I now proceed to notice another group of objects in metal possessing peculiar features still more strongly marked, but exhibiting also the distinctive characteristics of the same style of art.

A pair of these objects were found imbedded in the earth over the entrance to a curious underground structure in the garden at Castle Newe in Aberdeenshire. The structure was a long narrow curved subterranean gallery about 50 feet in length and 7 feet wide on the floor. What remained of the walls was only 4½ feet high, but showed that it had been roofed over by bringing the walls gradually towards each other as they increased in height, till the space could be covered with flat stones of moderate length. [Illustration: Fig. 115.—Bronze Armlet, with enamelled ornaments (one of a pair), found at Castle Newe, Aberdeenshire. Front view (5¾ inches in diameter).] This form of structure, as we shall see in a subsequent Lecture, is typical, and extends over the Celtic area. The pair of objects found in association with this typically Celtic structure are of quite a remarkable character. They are massively formed, but highly decorated objects of cast bronze. It is obvious from their form and decoration that they are designed for an ornamental purpose. It is impossible that they could have been worn as personal ornaments either with comfort or convenience, but that impossibility does not necessarily invalidate the conclusion that they were personal ornaments, because such things have been worn in all ages, although they have entailed discomfort and inconvenience to the wearers. The special form of the objects and the circumstance that a pair of them were found together are suggestive of their use as armlets. Their form, as shown in Fig. 115, is the typically Celtic form—penannular, with rounded and slightly-expanded ends. These terminal expansions have circular spaces in the centre, bordered by a double raised edging, and filled with plaques of bronze [Illustration: Fig. 116.—Bronze Armlet, found at Castle Newe, Aberdeenshire. Back view (5¾ inches in diameter).] ornamented with chequered patterns of red and yellow enamels. These bronze plaques are fixed in their places by iron pins. The body of the armlet (Fig. 116) is divided longitudinally into three distinct ridges or bands with convex surfaces, separated by narrow bands of a tooled chevrony ornament, which lie along the furrows between the ridges. At intervals there rise from the ridges solid, flattened, and curvilinear projections of about ¾ inch in length, placed obliquely across the ridges, and standing in rows from side to side of the armlet. These are connected longitudinally by less highly raised trumpet-shaped scrolls, slightly curved, and passing obliquely across till they meet in the centre. The median ridge stops short at the circular spaces in the terminal expansions, while the exterior ridges on either side pass round to form the border of the expansion on which the projecting ornaments are continued in a less pronounced form. The general contour of the armlets is that of an oval slightly compressed from front to back. Their greatest diameter is 5¾ inches, their greatest depth 4½ inches, and the weight of each is 3¾ lbs. They do not commend themselves to our notions of elegance and comfort as articles of personal decoration, but they possess a strong individuality of character, combined with an ingenious and highly-effective style of decoration which is not met with on any other class of objects in metal.[66]

Footnote 66:

A denarius of the Emperor Nerva was subsequently found close by the place where the armlets were discovered. The underground structure appears, like many of its class, to have been associated with an overground habitation, the site of which was marked by fire-burnt pavement, remains of querns, beads, etc., found near the present surface.

Another pair of similar armlets found within a few feet of each other, and slightly covered with earth, on the farm of Pitkelloney, near Muthil, in Perthshire, are now in the British Museum. They are not exactly similar in size, though their forms are similar, and their ornamentation almost the same. One measures 16 inches in circumference, the other only 15 inches, but the smaller is the heavier of the two, weighing 3 lbs. 10 oz., while the larger only weighs 3 lbs. 3 oz. The circular spaces in the expanded ends of the armlet are filled with enamelled plates, fastened in their places by iron pins. The enamels are _champléve_ in flat plates of bronze, the colours red and yellow. The patterns (Fig. 117) are not chequered like those in the Castle Newe armlets. One presents a plain rectangular cross-like figure in yellow on a red ground, with a circle of red in the centre. The other has a double quatrefoil in yellow and red on a red ground, with a yellow centre.