16 
the presence of the spiral ornament. This is indicative of the 
influence of the art of the later Aegean period, or as it is 
generally called of the Mycenean period. 
Perhaps I may be allowed to explain what is probably very 
well known to you all, that the early period of Aegean civilisa- 
tion is characterised by the use of the stone implements, and 
copper, and of hand-made pottery. It may roughly be assigned 
to the second half of the third millennium B.C., z.e., from 2,500 
to 2,000 B.C. The succeeding period is the age of bronze and 
of pottery made on the wheel, and as the remains found at 
Mycenae are typical of this period and important, the whole 
period is often known as ‘“‘ Mycenean.”’ It roughly corres- 
ponds in time with the second millennium B.C., 7.e., 2,000 to 
OOO mint C: 
The question may now be well asked how it comes that 
this far distant influence has extended to so remote a shore as 
that of Denmark. But the connection may be clearly traced. 
The presence of amber in the eastern Mediterranean is evidence 
of a considerable trade with the shores of the Baltic, and further 
research has gone far to establish the existence of two very 
ancient trade routes, both leading from the head of the 
Adriatic to the Baltic, the one following the valleys of the 
Adige, Inn, Moldau and Elbe, and the other, or easterly route, 
reaching the Baltic at Dantzic.* It should further be stated 
that traces of this Mycenean influence may also be found in 
our own islands, which they reached by one or the other 
of the two trade routes for tin, probably by the earliest, 
which led from Narbo by the Loire and Garonne and the 
Channel Islands to the Isle of Wight. 
There is another important deduction that may be made 
from the ornament on the Trundholm disc. On it may be 
seen both the concentric circles and also the spiral. It had 
formerly been held that the concentric circle, which is so com-. 
mon in Irish art, was a debased form of the spiral, and there- 
fore, later in time. 
But the Trundholm disc makes it clear that the same artist 
who drew the concentric circles could also trace good spirals. 
The inference from this is that the art represented by the discs 
found in Ireland need not be later, and indeed may well be 
earlier than that represented on the Danish disc. 
Moreover, we have good reason. for concluding that as 

*See British Museum Guide to the Antiquities of the Bronze Age, 
Pp. 95. 


