CHAP, x.] SPINNING AND WEAVING. 359 



of flint by Pyrodes, the son of Cilix, is a myth which 

 points to the use of silex and pyrites rather than of 

 steel. 1 



The important position of the axe in the Bronze 

 civilisation is proved by its numbers ; and the introduc- 

 tion of edged tools of metal must have caused a great 

 improvement in the carpentery. Chisels, gouges, and 

 adzes, and little bronze saws, from three to five inches 

 long, apparently, from their small size, imitated from 

 the serrated flint flakes of the Neolithic age, were 

 their most usual tools for cutting wood. 



Spinning and Weaving. 



Spinning and weaving were carried to a higher pitch 

 of perfection in the Bronze age than before. In the 

 Neolithic age the material employed for fabrics was 

 composed of linen ; in that of Bronze the art of spinning 

 wool into thread, and of weaving it into cloth, first 

 makes its appearance. In the Scale-house barrow, Kyi- 

 stone, to which we have already referred, the body had 

 been covered from head to foot in cloth before being 

 buried in the coffin, composed of a hollow oak trunk. 

 The body had been turned into adipocere. It must be 

 observed that woollen fabrics can be preserved only under 

 very rare circumstances. They are completely destroyed 

 by fire, and they rapidly decay in water ; and it is only 

 under those imperfectly known and exceptional condi- 

 tions in which the body is turned into adipocere, and 

 the bones into phosphate of iron, from the percolation 

 of water charged with salts of iron, that they withstand 

 decay. It does not therefore follow that the manufac- 



1 Evans, Ancient Stone Implements, p. 14. 



