Falling in Love; With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of ScienceAllen, Grant
Science
Falling in Love; With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science
Allen, Grant
Science
Prehistoric European pottery has never a spout, but it often indulges in
some simple form of ear or handle. The very ancient British bowl from
Bavant Long Barrow--produced by that old squat Finnlike race which
preceded the 'Ancient Britons' of our old-fashioned school-books--has
two ear-shaped handles projecting just below the rim, exactly as in the
modern form of vessel known as a crock, and still familiarly used for
household purposes. This long survival of a common domestic shape from
the most remote prehistoric antiquity to our own time is very
significant and very interesting. Many of the old British pots have also
a hole or two holes pierced through them, near the top, evidently for
the purpose of putting in a string or rope by way of a handle. With the
round barrows, which belong to the Bronze Age, and contain the remains
of a later and more civilised Celtic population, we get far more
advanced forms of pottery. Burial here is preceded by cremation, and the
ashes are enclosed in urns, many of which are very beautiful in form and
exquisitely decorated. Cremation, as Professor Rolleston used feelingly
to plead, is bad for the comparative anatomist and ethnographer, but it
is passing well for the collector of pottery. Where burning exists as a
common practice, there urns are frequent, and pottery an art in great
request. Drinking-cups and perforated incense burners accompany the
dead in the round barrows; but the use of the potter's wheel is still
unknown, and all the urns and vases belonging to this age are still
hand-moulded.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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