PREHISTORIC A.RT. 539 



4, 1802, and stole both horns. To avoid detection, he melted them into 

 bars, and, being- a goldsmith, he fabricated therewith chains, collars, 

 buckles, and other Jewelry. This further excited his avarice, and he 

 began the falsification or adulteration of the gold in his manufactured 

 objects, which led to his detection and final conviction. 



The foregoing- descriptions were from measurements, drawings, and 

 casts made while the horns were in existence. 



IRET.AND. 



Bronze horns. — The ancient musical instruments of Ireland, so far 

 brought to the notice of archaeologists, are the horn or trumpet, the 

 harp, and the bagpipe. The two latter are more modern and are prob- 

 ably not prehistoric. The Museum of Science and Art at Dublin pos- 

 sesses several ancient harps, attractive on account of their historic and 

 national interest, but they are not for ns. The only prehistoric objects 

 found suspected of belonging- to this class are the bone hairpins (?) 

 from the Strokestown Crannoge. 



Fig-. 178 shows a metacarpal bone of a deer. It is 8 inches long, is 

 hollowed artificially throughout and perforated with nine holes, each of 

 which is surrounded by a circular incised line, the upper hole with two 



f^P^^^^gr--'®"-/ ©-=- @^-@=T^ - ' @--] 



Fig. 178. 



BONE FLAGEOLET (?), FRAGMENT, METACARPEL OF DEER. 



Museum of Scieuce and Art, Dublin. 



lines. It is otherwise decorated with dots and lines. Sir William K. 

 Wilde ^ was doubtful about this being a musical instrument. He says: 



If it was the top member of ii lute or a .small rude harp, the holes might have been 

 used for holding the pins to which the strings were fastened. 



It is here figured as possibly a musical instrument. 



M. Paul du Chaillu wrote his interesting work, " The Viking Age," ' to 

 demonstrate the proposition that the early settlers of Britain and the 

 British Isles were Vikings rather than Anglo-Saxons. He based his 

 theory upon the similarity of the many objects found, respectively, in 

 Britain and Denmark. While his theory lias not been accepted gener- 

 ally, yet it must be confessed that the similarity he points out was 

 remarkable. Xot the least is it so with regard to the trumpets or horns 

 (luhrs). A fact in this similarity opposed to Du Chaillu's theory is that 

 the greater, almost the entire, number of these trumpets are found in 

 Ireland, while they are extremely rare in England. Sir John Evans' 

 records that as early as 1713 Mr. F. Nevill described^ eight bronze 

 trumpets found at Dunganon, County Tyrone, Ireland. 



' Catalogue of Antiquities of the Royal Irish Academy, p. 344, fig. 225. 

 "Two volumes, pp. xix, 591, and viii, 562; fig. 1364. 

 ^Ancient Bronze Implements of Great Britain and Ireland, p. 35i(. 

 ■'Phil. Trans., XXVIII, p. 270. 



