Cave Hunting: Researches on the evidence of caves respecting the early inhabitants of EuropeDawkins, William Boyd
History
Cave Hunting: Researches on the evidence of caves respecting the early inhabitants of Europe
Dawkins, William Boyd
Antiquities, Prehistoric -- Europe; Caves -- Europe; Europe -- Antiquities; Prehistoric peoples -- Europe
Two other brooches were also discovered in the black layer, which are
even of greater interest than those which have just been described.
The one represents a dragon (colored Plate, fig. 3), with its eye made
of red enamel; the other (colored Plate, fig. 7) shaped, like the
letter S, has its front composed of an elaborate cloissonnée pattern
in red, blue, and yellow enamels, and is of the same design as two
brooches in the British Museum, discovered, one near Whittington Hill,
in Gloucestershire, and the other near Malton, in Yorkshire. All three
were, undoubtedly, turned out of the same artistic school, and they may
have been made by one workman. The enamel, in all these examples, seems
to have been inserted into hollows in the bronze, and then to have
been heated so as to form a close union with them, and in some cases
where it has been broken, as in colored Plate, fig. 7, small fragments
still remain to attest the completeness of the fusion with the bronze.
The style of workmanship is neither Roman nor Teutonic. An enamelled
fibula with spirals in relief, found at Reichenbach[54] (Soleure) in
a post-Roman sepulchre, and figured by Bonstettin, is of a similar
design, and it may be traced also in two brooches obtained by the Abbé
Cochet, from the Merovingian Cemetery of Envermeu,[55] although they
are of more massive and square construction than those of Yorkshire.
One harp-shaped brooch (colored Plate, fig. 1) is ornamented with
diamonds of blue enamel, separated by small triangles of red, and shows
in its Roman design and Celtic ornamentation the union between Celtic
and Roman art. A similar specimen from Brough Castle, Westmoreland, is
preserved in the British Museum, and may have been turned out of the
same workshop. We also met with an enamelled disk (colored Plate, fig.
6), and a finger-ring (fig. 4) of bronze-gilt, ornamented with blue
enamel.
Several enamelled fibulæ in the British Museum, obtained by Sir James
Musgrave, at Kirby Thore, Westmoreland, belong to the same style of art
as those of the Victoria cave, and were associated with the same class
of remains. Shields,[56] scabbards, horse trappings, and other articles
have also been discovered in this county, decorated in the same fashion
with coloured enamels, and especially a bronze vase from the late Roman
tumuli, called the Bartlow Hills. They all belong to the class termed
“late Celtic” by Mr. Franks, and are considered by him to be of British
manufacture.
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