602 THE METHODS OF ARCH^OLOGICAL RESEARCH. 



These Semitic i)eoj)les founded the successive kingdoms of Babylo- 

 nia and Assyria, but it was tlie Plioenicians who were chiefly instru- 

 mental in multiplying and distributing the wares which the older men 

 of Mesopotamia had made. They were to be found trading and traffick- 

 ing everywhere from far-off Britain to far-off Thule, and still farther 

 to that land of mist and snow where the griffons were supposed to 

 guard the gold deposits of Siberia. Their settlements and trading- 

 ports were to be found all over the Mediterranean. These same Phoe- 

 nicians were also great metallurgists, and if not the discoverers of 

 bronze, M^hich added so much to the resources of the early craftsman, 

 they were so far as we know the great distaibutors of the knowledge of 

 the making and also of the materials of bronze. 



Let us revert once more to northern Europe, and notably to our own 

 country. It was during its occupation by round-headed i)eople that 

 the use of bronze was first introduced here. Gold was apparently their 

 own discovery, but bronze, I believe, was an imported art, and had 

 nothing to do with the introduction of a new race. The bronze workers, 

 as we know from the numerous hoards Avhich have occurred, and also 

 from the numerous molds which have been found, were traveling 

 tinkers and metallurgists, such as the metal workers of Finland still are, 

 and as the mediaval goldsmiths in Scotland were. The weapons, orna- 

 ments, and tools are of the same type, differing in slight details only 

 from one end of Europe to the other, and showing that the art was 

 spread over a wide area occupied by many races, and it seems to have 

 spread from the Mediterranean lands, i)erhaps by the agency of those 

 traders who took Baltic amber to Greece and Italy, and who in the 

 first instance were probably the Pha^nicians. It is curious that this 

 bronze culture should have advanced to very different stages of style 

 and elaboration in different areas. In Spain it advanced only to a small 

 degree, as wo may learn from the explorations of my friends, the broth- 

 ers Siret; in England and France considerably farther; in Scandi- 

 navia and Hungary farther still, and I would suggest as an explanation 

 that the reason is that in Spain and the western countries bronze was 

 displaced by iron at an earlier date. Thus, while in Scandinavia we 

 have no reason to suppose that iron was used until about the Christian 

 era, in Britain it must have been used several centuries earlier. Thus 

 the later and more developed bronze culture of Denmark and Hungary 

 corresponded in age and was synchronous with the earlier use of iron 

 in Britain, and probably also in Gaul and Spain, and hence it represents 

 a later and more developed art. As I have said, the introduction of 

 bronze was the introduction of a- new art, and not a new race, and it is 

 a great mistake for x^eople to talk of the bronze folk as if they were 

 something ditterent to the men who used stone. 



The next art revolution in these latitxidcs did, however, mean the 

 importation of a new stock. This was coincident with the introduction 



