Celtic art in Pagan and Christian times — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Celtic art in Pagan and Christian times
John Stuart Mill · en
As far as the available evidence goes, glass does not seem to have
been used for any other purpose by the Late-Celtic people except the
manufacture of personal ornaments, the most important of which were
beads for necklaces. Some of the beads from Ireland and Scotland,
specimens of which may be seen in the museums at Dublin and Edinburgh,
are most artistically fashioned from twisted rods of glass of
variegated colour bent into peculiar shapes. They have been obtained
from the Irish crannogs at Lagore, Co. Meath, and Lough Ravel.
A bracelet of green glass, with a cable-like ornament in white and blue
strands surrounding its outer surface, was found a few years ago in the
crannog at Hyndford, Co. Lanark.
WOODWORK, BONEWORK, AND THE KIMMERIDGE SHALE INDUSTRY
Owing to the perishable nature of the material very few examples
of carved woodwork of the Late-Celtic period are now in existence.
Those which we do possess have been derived from the Glastonbury
Marsh Village and from the crannog at Lochlee, Ayrshire. Mr. Arthur
Bulleid, F.S.A., has illustrated three specimens in an article on
“Some Decorated Woodwork from the Glastonbury Lake Village” in the
_Antiquary_ for April, 1895, p. 109. No. 1 was dug up from the peat
at a depth of 6 feet 6 inches below the surface, near the south-east
edge of the village. It is a rectangular piece of wood dressed smooth
all over, 1 foot 7 inches long by 3¾ inches wide by ⅛ inch thick,
decorated on one side with a step-pattern shaded after the fashion of
chequerwork, with a cross-hatching of diagonal lines. No. 2 is the
stave of a small bucket, which, when complete, must have been 7 inches
high by 5½ inches in diameter, decorated with a lozenge pattern shaded
with parallel straight lines. No. 3 is a portion of a tub 6 inches high
by 1 foot in diameter, cut out of a solid piece of ash, and having
its exterior surface decorated with flowing lines of extreme beauty,
resembling scrolls of foliage converted into geometrical ornament by
successive copying. Where the flowing lines diverge, the trumpet-shaped
expansions are shaded with diagonal cross-hatching and dots. There is
a good model of this tub in the British Museum. The designs on the
woodwork from Glastonbury are produced by incising the surface with
some fine sharp-pointed tool, and afterwards burnt in by passing a
heated piece of metal along the incisions.
The specimen from the Lochlee crannog, which is illustrated in Dr. R.
Munro’s _Ancient Scottish Lake-Dwellings_ (p. 134), is a piece of ash 5
inches square, ornamented on one side with a triple spiral, and on the
other with Late-Celtic flamboyant work.
A wooden bowl with a carved handle, found in a bog near Rathconrath,
Co. Westmeath, and now in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy in
Dublin, may possibly belong to the same category.