THE “BRONZE AGE.”

Dunstan Times, Issue 2482, 24 May 1909, Page 8

THE “BRONZE AGE.”

(By J. K. Willetts, M.A.)

Thanks to Mr J. Pierpont Morgan, the British Museum is now tho assured possessor of an incomparable Bronze Age collection. His purchase and gift, to the Museum of the Green well collection of prehistoric weapons, implements, and utensils of bronze, numbering about 2500 specimens, leaves all other exhibits of this important period in the evolution of mankind hopelessly inferior. With this addition the British Museum enables the student to survey the Bronze Age with geographical thoroughness. The specimens represent every civilisation of the age when craftsmanship in alloy (f copper and tin marked the tremendous advance from the age of stone—Egypt, Syria, Southern, Central, and Northern Europe, and the prolific energy of the ancient Britons. Besides these priceless relics, the “barrows” of Wales and the western counties of England, where bronze weapons and implements were hoarded and buried with the bodies of their owners, have furnished the means of reconstructing the actual workshops in which these old craftsmen melted the copper and tin, cast the alloy in moulds, hammered the rough forms into their finished shape and wore weapons to a sharp edge on “sharpening stones.” , , . It is probable that by the bulk of those to whom Canon Greenwell’s reputation as an antiquary is known the collection now in question will be set down as the fruits of his own explorations in the tumuli of tho British Isles. This is not the case. The antiquities he himself discovered were "resented by him to the British Museum just thirty years ago, and hj s later finds given from tome to time; further, these latter belonged to an earlier period of the Bronze Age. In addition 1o the passion for exploration ho added that of collecting, and 1 t is the many series illustrating tho maturer Bronze Age civilisation, chiefly of Britain, but also of the Continent and the East, and gathered from all quarters that constitute Mr Morgan’s gift. It may well be that to the average person such objects as bronze axes, spears, swords, and the like, possess but little attration. The enthusiastic collector will gay, with truth, that such an attitude is not the fault of tho object. He will declare with equal iustice that the modern bronze caster has many an elementary lesson to learn from his brother worker of nearly three thousand -ears ago, who with his simple and primitive appliances produced weapons of bronze that the most advanced of modern craftsmen can only wonder at and equal with difficulty. Another fact that perhaps may Uo more generally realised is that these remains belong to a time before written history in these islands, and that it is to them alone and to tho circumstances and conditions of their discovery that we must look for elucidation of the story of British life at about tho time when Knossos was in its prime. The collector does not n-c©Q arguments to encourage him in his hobby, nut if any were needed in f he "resent case there is clearly ample justification for the most complete illustration of the Bronze Age of Britain in tho British Museum, _ . Canon Greenwell. who is now in his ninetieth year, has been a collector for rt least two thirds of nis life, and has taken full advantage of his opportunities. The collection contains nearly fifty bronze swords, the greater part of them in tine state of preservation. Some of these, as well as a large number of daggers, spearheads, and other relics, have been dredged up from the bed of the Thames. As a rule these latter, except for a change of color, are exactly in tho same state us when they were deposited, for the Thames mud appears to have a preservative effect upon many substances, even wood and iron; and” bronze especially shows no sign of the decay or loss of outline due to the oxidation of the metal. Many of the spearheads and swords from the river will show, therefore, all the astonishing precision of detail that the artist bestowed upon them. In some of the dagger and ranier blades this characteristic is seen perna"s to greater perfection than in any of the other weapons. Most of the rapiers are thin, narrow blades, averaging less than an inch in width and nearly two feet in length. The stone moulds used in casting such weapons are to bo seen in the Museum collection, and an examination of them will only increase one’s wonder at the skill of the workman who was able to produce so perfect a result with such simple appliances. The frequent discovery c f such moulds, moreover, disposes finally of the contention that these admirable weapons were not of native make. Moreover, the types of prehistoric weapons found in. Britain not only differ from those found on the Continent, but in a large number of instances show even a greater command of the resources of the metal worker s craft. And yet at the same time there is no doubt that communication between Northern France and Britain was frequent during the Bronze Age. Certain sections of Greenwell s collection will appeal more strongly to the student than to the ordinary visitor. ; Among these are tho “founder’s hoards, groups of defective or broken implements, which have been found hidden together in the spot where they were doubtless deposited 1 by the bronze founder who intended to recast them into new weapons. Such hoards are of special archeological value, inasmuch as it may be taken as certain that all the objects in a hoard are of the same age, and as they are very often miscellaneous—spearheads, axes, swords and other articles occurring together—the hoards furnished the surest means of determining the contemporary manufacture and use of particular types. By their help the sequence can be fixed—a great point in a study where nearly ah the evidence available is confined to the objects themselves. It must be remembered that practically none of the specimens in the present collection have been found with interments, and that in deal ing with them we have none of the help furnished by the funeral customs which tell us so much both in earlier and later times. The greater number arc isolated finds from either river beds or from accidental discoveries in the earth. It is therefore only by the deductive method that we can fix their relations with tho historic or semi-historic civilizations of Southern Europe, and thus arrive at an approximation to an absolute date. Although, as has been already said, the chief importance of the collection lies in its British specimens, many of those from other cities are of equal value. One of the- most curious weapons is certainly a huge spear-like weapon from China, dating from 761 A.D. according to an inscription upon it, while a fine Egyptian axe of 1200 8.C., the copper head bound on with leather thongs, would arouse wonder at its perfect state of preservation were it not that such marvels have now become commonplace. . , , ... An elegantly shaped little dagger ox the Hallstatt period, when bronze was giving place to iron, showes how precious was the latter metal in comparison with bronze; a small plate of iron was inserted at the butt of the blade, probably more for ornament than for any useful purpose, though it is continued through the hilt as a tang. Another interesting series of axes from Syria serves to illustrate the ©volution of a special form of axehead common to that country and Egypt

Mr John Richardson, J.P., a prominent Socialist, caused an animated scene at the meeting of the Lincoln Education Committee when it wa s announced that the children of Lincoln (New Zealand) had sent a Union Jack to 1 the children of the town. “You are doing a very wrong work to encourage the children in these frivolities,” he declared. “It is a silly, smallminded thing.”