The existence of other Late-Celtic collars has been recorded at
Mowroad,[217] near Rochdale, Lancashire; Embsay,[218] near Skipton,
Yorkshire; Perdeswell,[219] Worcestershire; Lochar Moss,[220]
Dumfriesshire; and Hyndford Crannog,[221] near Lanark. These five
belong to a special class of what are not inaptly called “beaded
torques,” because rather more than one-half the collar is composed
of bronze beads of two different shapes, (one convex and the other
concave) strung alternately on an iron rod of square cross-section,
so as to prevent the beads from revolving. The remaining and smaller
segment of the circle consists of a bronze tube of rectangular
cross-section, ornamented on the exterior with a Late-Celtic flamboyant
design. The Perdeswell collar is incomplete, and the part which remains
is formed of twenty beads resembling vertebræ strung on to an iron wire
or bar, as in the case of the Lochar Moss collar.
[212] _Archæologia Cambrensis_, ser. 6, vol. i., p. 83.
[213] _Ibid._
[214] _Archæologia_, vol. xvi., p. 127.
[215] _Ibid._, vol. liv., p. 496.
[216] Dr. J. Anderson’s _Scotland in Pagan Times_.
[217] H. Fishwick’s _History of the Parish of Rochdale_, p. 5.
[218] _Archæologia_, vol. xxxi., p. 517.
[219] _Ibid._, vol. xxx., p. 554.
[220] D. Wilson’s _Prehistoric Annals of Scotland_, vol. ii., p. 141,
and _Archæologia_, vol. xxxiii., p. 347.
[221] _Proc. Soc. Art. Scot._, vol. xxxiii., p. 385.
[Illustration: Bronze Beaded Torque from Lochar Moss, Dumfriesshire
Now in the British Museum]
[Illustration: BRONZE ARMLET FROM THE CULBIN SANDS; NOW AT ALTYRE, NEAR
FORRES, N.B.]
[Illustration: BRONZE ARMLET FROM THE CULBIN SANDS; NOW AT ALTYRE, NEAR
FORRES, N.B.]
The last class of personal ornaments of the Late-Celtic period to
be noticed are the armlets. The most remarkable of these are of the
Scottish type, as it may fairly be called, only one specimen having
been found outside Scotland.[222] The armlets of this type are very
heavy and massive, and their general form appears to have been
suggested by a coiled serpent; as in the one from the Culbin Sands,
Nairnshire, the ends of the coil terminate in actual serpents’ heads.
The armlets are usually found in pairs, and are highly ornamented
with flamboyant work, and in some cases enamelled. Although they are
of cast bronze, the style of the decoration is evidently copied from
the repoussé designs of the wrought metalwork of the period. Dr. J.
Anderson has devoted a considerable portion of his Rhind Lectures on
_Scotland in Pagan Times_: Iron Age, to the examination of the Scottish
group of armlets, most of which are in the Edinburgh Museum. The
following is a list of the known examples:—
[222] At Newry, Co. Down.
_List of Localities where Armlets of the Scottish Type_
_have been found._