CHARACTER OF ORNAMENTATION. 25 



FIG. 52. 



Gold Ornament Ireland. 



The ornamentation on the objects of bronze is of peculiar, 

 and at the same time uniform, character ; it consists of simple 

 geometrical patterns, and is formed by combinations of spirals, 

 circles, and zigzag lines; representations of animals and plants 

 being very rarely attempted. Even the few exceptions to 

 this rule are perhaps more apparent than real. Thus, two 

 such only are figured in the Catalogue of the Copenhagen 

 Museum; one is a rude figure of a swan (fig. 29), the 

 other of a man (fig. 31). The second of these forms the 

 handle of a knife, which appears to be straight in the blade, 

 a type characteristic of the Iron age, but rarely found in that 

 of Bronze. As regards one of them, therefore, there is an 

 independent reason for referring it to the period of transition, 

 or at least to the close of the Bronze age. There is, indeed, 

 one type of pattern, usually found on the razor-knives, but 

 sometimes also on others, intended probably for a rude repre- 

 sentation of a ship (figs. 34-37). Even, however, if we admit 

 that this is the case, and if we accept these objects as belonging 

 to the Bronze age, they will only show how little advance had 

 yet been made in the art of representing natural objects. 



We should hardly, perhaps, have expected to know much 

 of the manner in which the people of the Bronze age were 

 dressed. Considering how perishable are the materials out 

 of which clothes are necessarily formed, it is wonderful 

 that any fragments of them should have remained to the 

 present day. There can be little doubt that the skins of 



