74 OUP-SHAPED AND OTHER LAPLDARIAN SCULPTURES. 



find the warriors already armed with iron weapons,* and the tools used in 

 preparing the materials for Solomon's temple were of this metal It is very 

 remarkable that scarcely any traces of ancient commerce have been found 

 in Cornwall, and it is much to be regretted that our museums possess so 

 few specimens of Phoenician art. When these wants shall have been sup- 

 ipYied, as we may hope that ere long they will be, there is no doubt that 

 much light will be thrown on the subject."! 



Professor Nilsson, I may add, finds distinct traces of the Phoenicians 

 in Ireland, which country he visited in 1860, with a view to examine its 

 antiquities. He ascribes to that enterprising people the cairns of Dowth 

 and New Grange, the chambers of which show sculptured figures (zigzags, 

 wheels with four spokes, etc.) resembling those on the slabs of the Kivik 

 monument. He lays particular stress on the fact that the custom of lighting 

 a Midsummer's-night fire, and of dancing around or jumping through it, was 

 still in vogue among the Irish until within a recent period. This ceremony, 

 called Balstein by the people, has been abolished through the efforts of the 

 clergy, who were desirous of putting an end to the excesses arising from 

 the practice.! The structures of Avebury and Stonehenge, in Wiltshire, 

 England, I may further state, are considered by Professor Nilsson as tem- 



* There is repeatedly reference made to iron in the Homeric poems (II. IV, 482 ; V, 722 ; XXIII, S26, 

 etc.), and even the hardening of iron by immersion in water is alluded to (Od. IX, 391). Iron is also 

 mentioned by Homer in connection with more precious metals, a circumstance indicative of the value in 

 which it was held. Thus, bronze, gold, and "much-worked" iron — ;fa/\K6c t£ xP''^'^ov re, itoXvKin^xov 

 TE 6lS7]pov — constituted the treasure of Ulysses (Od. XIV, 324). Yet spears, swords, and other weapons 

 used diu-ing the Trojan war are described as being made of bronze. 



Dr. Sehlicmann, however, has arrived at ditftrent results. In an address delivered at the Eleventh 

 Annual Meeting of the German Anthropological Society, held at Berlin in August, 1880, he expresses 

 himself as follows : — 



" I wish it were in my power to prove that Homer was an eye-witness of the Trojan war. Unfortu- 

 nately I cannot. In his time swords were in general use and iron was known ; at Troy swords were as 

 yet totally unknown, and the people had no knowledge of iron. The civilization described by him i>ost- 

 dates several centuries that which was brought to light by my excavations. Homer gives us the legend 

 of Ilion's tragic fate as it was transmitted to him by former bards, and, in doing so, he clothes the tradi- 

 tion of the w.ar and the destruction of Troy in the garb of his own time. Yet he was not without per- 

 sonal knowledge of the localities, as his descriptions of the Troas in general, an d of the plain of Troy in 

 I)artioular, are in the main correct." — Note hy C. Sail. 



tSir John Lubbock: Prehistoric Times; New York, 1872, p. 71, etc. 



t Mr. Holden, of the well-known firm Harvey & Holden, of this city, told me that, in his boy- 

 hood, he used to assist in collecting the wood for these fires and in building them. I obtained similar 

 information from other natives of Ireland. However, the custom of lighting fires on Saint John's eve 

 also prevailed, and stiU survives to some extent, in Germany, France, and other parts of the European 

 Continent. 



