THE BARROW INVENTORY 



circles. The metal was bright green on one side, 

 brown and shining on the other.* 



Possibly all the pieces of metal taken from this 

 barrow are bronze. Other metals are rarely found 

 in British barrows. It is one of the strongest argu- 

 ments in favour of a distinct age of bronze before 

 one of iron that so many round barrows have only 

 stone and bronze implements. Where iron is found 

 in barrows, it is always rudely fashioned compared 

 with the bronze. Many things go to show that the 

 people who buried their dead in the round barrows, 

 and wrought with skill in a mixture of copper and 

 tin, were not yet metallurgists in iron. Some 

 believe that an early iron age came before that 

 of bronze, as a later iron age came after it. But 

 what has become of the iron tools and weapons ? 

 It is incredible they have been completely wasted 

 by time and the earth. If this were the case, we 

 should expect to find their dark stains in many 

 places. 



Copper in unalloyed state is found in barrows in 

 foreign countries, but I think it is rare in those in 

 England. Copper ornaments, as those described to 

 me, are far more likely to be found in a barrow 

 than copper implements. In foreign countries 

 these implements are found fairly often. Our bronze 

 age ancestor in Britain had perhaps a copper age 

 contemporary in the New World ; but the art of 



* Quite lately the plates and bits of bronzed iron taken from this 

 barrow have been declared Roman by the British Museum ; but some 

 other relics seem to belong to a far more distant time. 



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