ARTS AND HANDICRAFTS 



313 



museums in Constance and Zurich ; others adorned with suns 

 and spirals have been obtained even from the neolithic necro- 

 polis of Lengyel in Hungary, and from the graves of Oden- 

 burg of the Hallstatt period (Fig. 1 39). 



Pictures of the sun can be traced back as far as the 

 palaeolithic period. In the cave of Gourdan, one of the so-called 

 sceptres was found, with a circle carved upon it, the rays of 

 which turned inwards and outwards. In this cave, and in the 

 lower Laugerie, were found circular bone discs pierced in the 

 centre and with rays carved on them. At Mas d'Azil (the 

 transitional locality) are some red-painted flints, the rings on 

 which were explained some time ago by Piette as representa- 

 tions of the sun. The circles either with or without rays on the 

 neolithic dolmen stones are also pictures of the sun, as are the 

 rings on the civic monument in Skane (Scandinavia) belong- 

 ing to the Bronze Age (Figs. 140-142). Montelins also considers 

 that in the pictures of ships belonging to the latter epoch we 

 may recognise very widespread and ancient symbols of the sun. 



Arts and Handicrafts. 



Next to those higher manifestations of reason, articulate 

 speech and religion, come the power of producing fire and the 

 possession of tools and instruments ; 

 these differentiate man psychologic- 

 ally, and give him his pre-eminent 

 place in the animal world. 



Fire. Not even the highest of 

 the anthropoid apes has ever suc- 

 ceeded in producing fire, and yet, 

 on the other hand, no race of men, 

 however degraded, has ever been 

 found which has not been in pos- 

 session of this art. Darwin con- 

 sidered that next to speech this was 

 the most useful power ever acquired 

 by the human race. 



It is quite possible, as M. v. Eyth 

 has pointed out (Weltall und Menschheit, Bd. v., p. 9), there 

 was a period in which fire was unknown, but it must have 



FIG. 138. Neolithic hollow clay 

 figure, from Laibach Moor, 

 \ natural size. (Homes, 

 Urgeschichte der Kunst.) 



