Remarkable are the rock-carvings from this period. The Swedes of the Bronze Age understood, by a kind of picture-writing, how to preserve the memory of important events, although an alphabet of any kind was unknown. The rock-carvings have been found abundantly in Bohuslæn (formerly a part of West Gothland) and East Gothland, but also occur in Scania and other parts of Sweden. At the time of the arrival of Cortez in Mexico the Aztecs were exactly on the same standpoint. In spite of their high civilization, they were in the Bronze Age and possessed a picture-writing, but were not acquainted with an alphabet. In Sweden, as in Mexico, there certainly once existed an oral tradition necessary for its interpretation, which, now lost, leaves little hope for their present or future explanation. Yet they throw considerable light on Swedish civilization during this remote period. Thus they show that horses were already used for riding and driving. Cattle are represented. In pairs these are harnessed to a plow, which is being driven by a man. Boats are depicted, generally very large ones, without masts, but with thirty pairs of oars or more. They are usually unlike at the two ends, sometimes adorned with an animal’s head in the high and narrow stem, sometimes with a similar decoration also in the stern. The rock-carvings tell us nothing of the dwellings or the dress of the Swedes in the Bronze Age. All the instruments and tools necessary for the construction of wooden houses existed and appear to have been in use. The material was ever abundantly supplied by the Swedish forests, but it was not strong enough to withstand the influence of time. All the more surprising it is that articles of dress from such a remote period as the Earlier Bronze Age, 1000 B.C., should have been preserved to our time. Still such is the case, thanks to a combination of exceptionally favorable circumstances. These garments are of wool of a very simple substance; some have been worn by men, others by women. The man’s dress consisted of an unbrimmed cap of thick woven wool, a wide circular mantle, a kind of tunic, kept together with a woollen belt, and some narrow strips of wool which probably covered the legs. In a man’s grave was found a shawl of wool with fringes. The woman’s dress consisted then, as it does now, chiefly of two garments, a jacket with sleeves and a long robe, the latter held together with a belt of wool, ending in ornamental tassels. Large mantles, of mixed wool and cow hair, were used as wraps. The women wore splendid bronze ornaments, such as finger-rings, bracelets, torques and brooches. From the finds it becomes apparent that many women in those days carried weapons, a dagger often being found at the side of the body.