THE ORIGIN OF EUROPEAN CULTURE. 21 



beginnings of its use. In this early combination of bronze and iron 

 the Hallstatt culture is in strong contrast with the rest of Europe. 

 Almost everywhere else, as in Hungary for example, a pure bronze 

 age — sometimes one even of copper also — intervenes between the 

 use of stone and iron. Here, however, the two metals, bronze and 

 iron, appear simultaneously. There is no evidence of a use of bronze 

 alone. Bearing in mind, what we shall subsequently emphasize in 

 the case of Scandinavia, that in that remote part of Europe man had 

 to put up with the inferior metal for close upon a thousand years be- 

 fore the acquisition of a better substitute, it will be seen that at Hall- 

 statt a remarkable foreshortening of cultural evolution had ensued. 

 Iron, as we have said, was still comparatively rare. Only in the 

 case of small objects, less often in the blades of bronze-handled 

 swords, does this more precious metal appear. But it is far more com- 

 mon than in the earliest Greek civilizations made known to us by 

 Schliemann and others. 



Pages of description would not give so clear an idea of this early 

 civilization as the pictures of their lives, which the Hallstatt people 

 have fortunately left to us. These are found in repousse upon their 

 bronzes, and particularly upon their little situlce, or metallic pails. 

 These situlce are, in fact, the most distinctive feature among all the 

 objects which they have left to us. By means of them their civiliza- 

 tion has been most accurately traced and identified geographically. 

 On the opposite page we have reproduced the design upon the most 

 celebrated of these situlce, discovered by Desehmann in 1882, at 

 Watsch in the Tyrol. Another from Bologna, typical of the pre- 

 Etruscan Italian time, will be found upon a later page. Upon each 

 of these, the skill manifested in the representation of men and ani- 

 mals is no less remarkable than the civilization which it depicts. The 

 upper zone of this situla from Watsch apparently shows a festal pro- 

 cession, possibly a wedding, for a lady rides in the second chariot. 

 The grooms and outriders betoken a party of distinction. As for the 

 second zone, doubt as to its exact interpretation prevails. Hochstetter 

 declares it to be a banquet, food and entertainment being offered to the 

 personages seated upon chairs at the left. Bertrand is disposed to give 

 it more of a religious interpretation. As for the contest between 

 gladiators armed with the cestus, all is plain. The spectators, judges, 

 even the ram and the helmet for reward of the "^-ictor, are all shown in 

 detail. It is not necessary for us to cite more evidence. A civilization 

 already far from primitive is surely depicted. As for its date, all are 

 agreed that it is at least as early as ten centuries before Christ ; * not 

 far, that is to say, from the supposed Homeric epoch in Greece. 



* Hoernes, 1892, p. 529; Bertrand, 18Y6 a, second edition, pp. 207-216, fixes about 

 800 B. c. ; but 1894 a, p. 80, carries it back to 1200-1300 b. c. 



