THE FIRST POTTER 32,5 



Bnp^f^est the idea that the uiiknown artist must have worked 

 with the actual hand of his shauglitered enemy lying for 

 a model on tlie tahlo boforo him. Much of the early 

 American pottery is also coloured as well as figured, and 

 that with considerable real taste ; the pigments were 

 applied, however, after tlie baking, and so possess little 

 stability or permanence of character. But pots and vases 

 of these advanced styles have got so far ahead of the first 

 potter that we have really little or no business with them 

 in this paper. 



Prehistoric European pottery has never a spout, but 

 it often indulges in some simple form of ear or handle. 

 The very ancient liritish bowl from Bavant Long Barrow 

 — produced by tliat old squat Finnliko race which preceded 

 the * Ancient Britons ' of our old-fashioned school-books- 

 has two ear-shaped handles projecting just below the rim, 

 exactly as in tlie modern form of vessel known as a crock, 

 and still familiarly used for household purposes. This long 

 survival of a common domestic shape from the most remote 

 prehistoric antiquity to our own time is very significant 

 and very interesting. ]\[any of the old British pots have 

 also a hole or two holes pierced through them, near the 

 top, evidently for the purpose of putting in a string or rope 

 by way of a handle. With the round barrows, which 

 belong to the Bronze Age, and contain the remains of a 

 later and more civilised Celtic population, we get far more 

 advanced forms of pottery. Burial here is preceded by 

 cremation, and the ashes are enclosed in urns, many of 

 which are very beautiful in form and exquisitely de- 

 corated. Cremation, as Professor Rolleston used feelingly 

 to plead, is bad for the comparative anatomist and etlino 

 grapher, but it is passing well for the collector of pottery 

 Where burning exists as a common practice, there urng 

 are frequent, and pottery an art in great request. Drink- 



