Celtic art in Pagan and Christian times

John Stuart Mill · en
[56] _Jour. Anthropolog. Inst._, vol. xxxii., p. 373.

[57] _British Barrows_, p. 81.

Canon Greenwell states that the urns of the four different types were
found associated with unburnt and burnt bodies in the barrows opened by
him on the Yorkshire wolds in the following proportions:—

                          Unburnt.                  Burnt.
    Cinerary urns            12                       9
                      (of cinerary urn type,     (containing
                       but without ashes)         burnt bones)
    Food-vessels             57                      16
    Drinking-cups            22                       2
    Incense-cups            none                      6

The geographical distribution of the different types of sepulchral
urns, as far as at present ascertained, is as follows: Food-vessels are
most common in Yorkshire, and most rare in Wiltshire and the south of
England generally. Drinking-cups are found all over Great Britain,[58]
and it is the type of urn which varies least. Incense-cups are found
with greater frequency in the south of England than in the north.

[58] See map given by the Hon. J. Abercromby in the _Jour. Anthropolog.
Inst._, vol. xxxii., pl. 24.

Now as to the decorative features of the sepulchral pottery of the
Bronze Age in Great Britain.

The sepulchral urns are made of coarse clay moulded by hand—not turned
on a lathe—and imperfectly baked by means of fire. The decoration was
executed whilst the clay was moist, either by

    (1) The finger-nail.
    (2) An impressed cord.
    (3) A pointed implement.
    (4) Stamps of wood or bone.

[Illustration: BRONZE AGE URN OF “DRINKING-CUP” TYPE FROM LAKENHEATH,
SUFFOLK; NOW IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM

HEIGHT 7½ INS.]

Besides incised patterns produced by these methods, the ornament was
sometimes moulded in relief and sometimes sunk, and the incense-cups
often have ornamental perforations.

With the exception of the circles found on the bottoms of some of the
incense-cups the decoration consists entirely of straight lines running
more often diagonally than either horizontally or vertically. The same
preference for diagonal lines will be observed in the key-patterns in
the Irish MSS. of the Christian period, and led, as we shall see in a
subsequent chapter, to those modifications of the Greek fret which are
characteristically Celtic.

[Illustration: Fig. 1.

    (_a_) Party per Chevron.
    (_b_) Party per Saltire.
    (_c_) Chevron.
    (_d_) Saltire.
    (_e_) Indented.
    (_f_) Dancettée
]