The Viking Age. Volume 1 (of 2): The early history, manners, and customs of the ancestors of the English-speaking nationsDu Chaillu, Paul B. (Paul Belloni)
History
The Viking Age. Volume 1 (of 2): The early history, manners, and customs of the ancestors of the English-speaking nations
Nothing perhaps can give us a better idea of the refined taste of some
of the Northmen than the beautiful glass objects which have been found
in different parts of the country. Many of these are evidently of Greek,
some perhaps of Roman, origin. In the museums of Italy, Greece, or
Russia no such exquisite bowls are found, which after having been
painted they seem to have been baked or subjected to heat in order that
they might retain their colour.
[Illustration:
Fig. 628.—2½ inches high; diameter across top, 3 inches; across
bottom, 1–7/10ths of an inch. A blue panther, with grey or brown
contours and dots, attacks a brown stag; on the other side of which
is a brown lioness. Between the animals are circles of dots, brown
and yellow by turns, with a brown spot in their middle.
]
[Illustration:
Fig. 629.—3½ inches high; 3–9/10th inches diameter. A brown bull, with
a blue band with brown dots, attacks a brown bear. To the left a man
in yellow coat and green breeches, holding a whip in one hand, in
the other a blue shield; to the right a stag, being torn by a lion,
both brown.
These two vessels were found in a field, Nordrup, Zeeland, in a grave
3 feet 4 inches under the ground. It contained a skeleton, and,
besides the two vessels, a Roman bronze vessel and bronze sieve, a
gold finger-ring, a silver fibula, forty-one beads of glass and
glass mosaic, a clay vessel, and fragments of two clay vessels.
]
[Illustration:
Fig. 630.—4 inches high, 3¾ inches in diameter across top. In a mound,
Viborg amt, Jutland.
]
[Illustration:
Fig. 631.—Fragment of glass vessel, with gladiator and shield of blue
tint, the gloves and shoulders are brown. Arm and legs of the other
gladiator flesh colour. Thorslunde.
]
[Illustration:
Fig. 632.—Fragments of glass bowl found in a grave by Thorslunde,
Fyen. ⅗ real size. The wolf is greyish upon light yellow ground. The
arm and legs are of a brown tint, the dots yellow and brown. These
lay alongside remains of skeletons which seem to have been buried in
sitting posture; some of the designs are raised.
]
Glass, as we have seen, has been found in the later bronze age: the
ancient name for _amber_ in the North was _gler_,[176] which was well
known by the stone age people; but we are aware that glass was unknown
to them.
[Illustration:
Fig. 633.—Fragment of a glass bowl of a green tint, ⅗ real size, found
in a grave mound by Thorslunde.
]
[Illustration:
Fig. 634.
]
[Illustration:
Fig. 635.
]
[Illustration:
Fig. 636.
]
[Illustration:
Fig. 637.
]
[Illustration:
Fig. 638.
]
[Illustration:
Fig. 639.
]
[Illustration:
Fig. 640.
Border of the vase.
]
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