THE BRONZE AGE IN SWEDEN. 



783 



of different color from those on the sides. It ended in thick orna- 

 mental tassels. A fibula, which may have fastened the jacket or 

 the mantle in front, a spiral finger-ring, two bracelets, a torque, and 

 three round decorated plates with points projecting in the middle, 

 ornaments of the belt, were found in the coffin, and a dagger, the 

 occurrence of which with a woman's body gives the archaeologists 

 something to speculate upon. These graves were of the early 

 Bronze age, and are therefore nearly three thousand years old. 

 Both this body and the one in the Treenhoi barrow were inclosed 

 in coffins made of the cloven and hollowed trunk of an oak, and 

 were wrapped in untanned hides. 



The ornaments of this age were far more beautiful and varied 

 than those of the Stone age. They were made chiefly of gold and 

 bronze. Amber was more rare than in the Stone age ; and silver 

 ornaments and glass do not seem to have yet been known. They 

 included ornaments for the neck and breast, belt ornaments, 

 bracelets, finger-rings, bronze buttons, combs, pendants, and pins. 

 The weapons consisted of daggers, axes, spears, bows and arrows, 

 probably clubs and slings, swords, helmets, and shields. The last 

 were usually of wood or leather, but some of them are very elab- 

 orate works of bronze. Representations of helmets appear in the 

 rock-carvings, but an actual specimen — a chin-piece, beautifully 

 decorated and overlaid with gold — of only one has been found. 

 The swords, of which, with daggers of bronze, large numbers have 

 been found in Sweden, were made for thrusting and not for cut- 

 ting, were short-hilted, and had two-edged and very pointed 

 blades ; their sheaths are sometimes unearthed in a more or less 

 complete state of preservation. One is made of wood overlaid with 

 well-tanned leather, and lined with fine skin ; others are all wood- 

 en, without leather, 

 but sometimes deco- 

 rated with carved 

 ornaments. Not all 

 of their weapons 

 and tools were of 

 bronze. Flints still 

 continued to be 

 used for the cheaper 

 sorts, and for those 



most liable to be lost ; and bronze seems to have been the mark of 

 a choicer tool, a more favorite weapon, and perhaps of more wealth 

 in the owner. 



Suggestions of agricultural and pastoral occupations appear in 

 the rock-carvings. One of these sculptures, at Tenegby, in Bohus- 

 lan, represents two animals harnessed to a plow and driven by a 

 workman who is walking behind. Another, on one of the re- 



Fig. 6.— Bronze Sickle. 



