The dawn of progress—London relics—The beauty of ancient art—The useful bronzes, the prototypes of later brasses—The forger at work.

As it has already been intimated, our older metal curios come to us from the Bronze Age. In the relics of that period, in which the British Museum is so rich, we are able to mark the great difference that must have existed between the people who lived the "simple life" in the Stone Age, and those who understood how to make and how to use implements of bronze. Metal must have revolutionized the habits of the people, fostered development, and marked progress as the Age advanced; for with metal appliances there were greater possibilities, and from the fact that while some used bronze others were content with flint, it would appear that then, perhaps, more than at any other time, the more advanced were sharply separated from those who, possessing lesser intelligence and possibly fewer opportunities, stayed behind.

The Dawn of Progress.

The more advanced Britons and the men of the later Bronze Age in other countries improved the patterns of their tools, the basis of which was found in flint implements, which in the later Neolithic period had become more varied. Even then they had hammer, saw, chisel, borer, spear or javelin, and arrow-point. They had also a variety of knives; some of curious sickle-like forms. There are weapons of war and weapons of defence, and some obviously used for the more peaceful arts and domestic purposes. As the collector secures specimens of the rarer types of bronze and metal objects coming to us from those far-off days, we read the story of the evolution of the race, and can picture in our minds the onward march.

The Romans did not find the ancient Britons quite savages, and we sigh with regret when we think of the numberless relics of priceless value—of bronze and of even more precious metals—which existed then, but which have perished long ago. The melting-pot has been a terribly fierce enemy to the collector of copper and brass, and it is really wonderful how many rare objects of the Bronze Age remain—prehistoric only in that we have no authentic records of the happenings of that period. We have, however, abundant evidence of the importance of that Age in the bronzes preserved to us for so long by Mother Earth, and now carefully tended by museum curators and private collectors. Among the fine examples we possess in our national collections are the ornamental bucklers of which some have been found in Wales and other places. That represented in Fig. 2 (1) came from the Thames Valley, and Fig. 3 (2) from the peat bogs near Aberystwyth; both may be seen in the British Museum.

Some exceptional hoards have been found in Ireland, notably the bronzes which were discovered in 1825 in a part of Whigsborough, called Derreens, in King's Co. It is surmised that although the land is now boggy the soil was at one time under cultivation, and from indications it would appear as if the bronzefounder had worked on the spot. In Fig. 4 several representative implements found in that hoard are pictured; their descriptions are as follows: Fig. 4 (1 and 3), palstaves; (5, 6, and 7), daggers; (2) a pear-shaped bell; (4 and 8) curved trumpets, all specimens of the latter part of the Bronze Age or of the beginning of the Iron Age. Many fine bronze vessels, chiefly without feet, have been found in Ireland. The two examples shown in Figs. 5 and 6 represent the way in which they were made, especially Fig. 5 (1), in which the riveting of the plates will be observed. Fig. 6 (2) has been designated an urn. Both of these late bronzes are in the British Museum, along with other Irish finds. In the same collection there is a trumpet of horn with rings or bands of studs, the mouthpiece being at the side. It is a curious relic of an Irish musician, found some years ago at Drimoleague, Co. Cork.

London Relics.

London has been the site of an important camp, town, or city ever since man lived in the marshes and upon the banks of Old Father Thames, and among the finds in the neighbourhood have been relics of every period of British civilization; and as a natural consequence London possesses representative collections of the Bronze Age, as well as of later periods. Collectors have many opportunities of buying, as well as of inspecting prehistoric bronzes in museums and in less important private collections. Some of these antiquities are of good form and possess a beauty of their own. The vivid green, relieved with deeper shades, with which age has painted these ancient relics gives them a peculiar charm, and it would be vandalism indeed to attempt to "clean" the celts and knives which antiquaries handle with such veneration and care.

The Beauty of Ancient Art.

During the last few years more attention has been given to the beauty of the workmanship of the early objects of brass and copper relics of prehistoric peoples, especially of the people who inhabited this country in pre-Roman days. The London museums contain very representative examples. To many the Guildhall Museum is of special interest, in that every object there has been found within the confines of the City of London. There are implements of the chase and of war and peace. For instance, in the cases containing weapons which may have been used for defence against wild animals, as well as for aggressive campaigns, there are bronze celts, some socketed with loops, side by side with a very fine tool and two small lumps of copper, which were discovered near the celt. These latter represent the unfinished material ready for the crucible and for the alloy which was to turn them into a bronze of special hardness. In the same case there are leaf-shaped swords and daggers of rapier form. There are also spear-heads of slender shapes with sockets extending near to the point of the weapon; and spear shaft-sockets of bronze, some of which were found in Fetter Lane.

Of the late Celtic period there are examples of personal objects, and it may be noted that duplicates of similar antiquities to those deposited in the Museum are on sale in a great number of shops in London, and now and then quite important parcels of these interesting metallic mementoes of peoples unknown come under the hammer. Such trinkets include bronze fibulÆ, some enamelled, others of plain metal. A very beautiful specimen terminating with a roughly formed snake's head was found on the Thames bank near Hammersmith, on the site of reputed pile dwellings, some little time ago. In the same locality a bronze bowl and a mount were found soon afterwards. From the river near Battersea came a bronze shield, specially interesting in that it was decorated with enamelled ornaments. Horse-bits with enamelled rosettes have also been found in London. Perhaps one of the most interesting relics of that early age was a British helmet of copper, also decorated with enamels, found near Waterloo Bridge. In the Guildhall Museum there is a brooch made with a bow and pin in one piece, and quite a number of other styles of bronze fibulÆ. There are bronze hairpins, too, some of the heads being decorated. There are Celtic tweezers, armlets of bronze, and many rings.

To the inquisitive who like to inquire into the processes of making things and to their sources, the remains of ancient workshops represented by lumps of copper, strips of bronze, and objects partly formed, are of special interest. There are bows, showing another advance in civilization. There are spoons, too, of circular form, hammered into shape. It has been said that bowls and spoons are the earliest signs of domesticity and civilization. Our ancestors, who lived on the seashore, made use of large shells, which gave them the cue to the fashioning of a shallow dish, which eventually became a bowl. The wings of the valves of the oyster and the pecten may have given the suggestion of a handle to a primitive spoon. Ethnologists have said that the broken cocoanut in the South Seas was the bowl of the primitive tribes, and from it vessels in clay were moulded.

The Useful Bronzes, the Prototypes of Later Brasses.

The beautiful bronzes of the later part of the Bronze Age include objects showing the gradual development and progress of the race. Not only are the weapons those likely to be used in defence against attacks from wild animals rather than for aggressive purposes, and the domestic bronzes of more civilized forms, but there are in addition implements of husbandry. In Ireland some very pronounced sickles and reaping-hooks have been found. There are also musical instruments and sounding horns, among them curved trumpets of bronze.

Many interesting although isolated finds have been made, such as a curious bronze or brass bucket with corrugated flutes, which was found at Weybridge, in Surrey, experts placing it among the relics of the early Iron Age. From Faversham, in Kent, many bronze mirrors have been secured, some of them being very ornamental, the backs being engraved all over. In the North of England several interesting finds have been made, too. Some of especial value were discovered in Heathery Burn Cave, Co. Durham; they consisted of domestic utensils which were probably used at the extreme end of the Bronze Age.

Among frequent finds is the patera or drinking-bowl, which must, of course, be distinguished from the patine, which was a flat dish with a raised rim, used for serving up meat or fish. Indeed, it would appear that some of the peoples who dwelt in those far-off ages of which we have no written history were more advanced in civilization and in the arts and crafts than we usually realize. Modern research has revealed much that was hitherto unknown, and scientists, explorers, and antiquaries now hold the ancients in much greater respect than formerly—they no longer regard them as "savages," although they may class them with the "barbarians" of more modern Europe.

Professor Petrie, the famous Egyptologist, when speaking on his wonderful researches some little time ago, said mankind had had a long past. That past leads to the present, and without a knowledge of the present and to some extent of the intermediate ages we cannot fully understand the past. It is the curios of antiquity which help us, and lead up by slow degrees to the present; this is understood by the curio-hunter, and realized more and more as he goes further into the past of nations. The curios of the Bronze Age are not limited in locality. They are found in continents far removed from Western civilization, for in the remains of ancient Peruvians there are tools of bronze belonging to their far-off past. The Incas were not only adepts at working the precious metals with tools of bronze, but they were clever workers of other raw materials. They possessed beautiful textiles of cotton and wool and were noted agriculturists, having implements of tillage made of bronze.

The Forger at Work.

A warning note is often sounded by those who have paid dearly for their experience. It is needed, for there are many pitfalls for the unwary, especially in his researches among the relics of the Bronze Age and periods which have been much copied by the makers of modern antiques. It is worthy of note that in the middle of the nineteenth century several Birmingham firms in making bronzed inkstands, bracket lights, candelabra, and figures supporting lamps, copied the antique very closely, one noted firm announcing on their trade circulars that their designs were "according to Greek, Roman, and Gothic ornaments." Examples of such comparatively modern work, when discovered tarnished and neglected, may sometimes have a close resemblance to real antiques, and even the curios of still greater antiquity—especially Egyptian curiosities—have been much forged. The forger—or, as he would prefer to be called, the maker of replicas—is still at work.

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