BRONZE KNIVES. 



35 



FIG. 36. 



Bronze knives (figs. 37 41) are frequently found in the 

 Danish tumuli, and among the remains of the Swiss lake 

 habitations ; twenty, for instance, at Merges, twenty-six at 

 Estavayer, and about a hundred at Nidau ; in Ireland they 

 appear to be very rare ; the Dublin Museum Fw - 35 - 

 does not contain one. They were generally 

 fitted into handles of bone, horn, or wood, 

 and the blade was almost always more or less 

 curved ; those of iron knives, on the contrary, 

 being generally straight. 



Fig. 48 represents a bronze knife found 

 at Thebes by Sir Gardner Wilkinson, and 

 figured in Lee's translation of Keller, page 

 276.* 



The small bronze razor-knives (figs. 42 

 45), indeed, have straight edges, but they 

 are quite of a different character from the 

 iron knives : from the ornaments engraved 



Spear-lieads from 



on them, I am disposed to regard them as Ireland, 

 belonging to a late period in the Age of Bronze, if not in 

 some cases to the beginning of that of Iron. Indeed, the 

 Flensborg Museum contains a razor-knife, said to have been 

 found together with objects of the latter metal. 



Ornaments of bronze do not, like the weapons of that 

 metal, characterize a definite period, but may belong to any 

 age. Therefore, before we refer any particular ornament to 

 this period, we must know the circumstances under which it 

 was found. The following illustrations are principally from 

 the Swiss lake-villages. 



The personal ornaments which may, I think, safely be 

 referred to the Bronze Age, consist principally of bracelets 



* See also for Egyptian Bronze a 1'Hist. Prirn. de 1'Homme, 1869, 

 implements and weapons, Mr. A. p. 376. 

 Arc-elm's paper in the Mater, p. Ser. 



D 2 



