644 Notes. 



barrows two other Egyptian beads have been discovered. These are 

 the ribbed and melon-shaped beads characteristic of the Eighteenth 

 and Nineteenth Dynasties, thus agreeing with the evidence of the 

 cylindrical beads. Along which particular trade route these Egyptian 

 beads made their way to Southern Britain is, of course, uncertain . . 

 . . . in the time of Caesar the Veneti of Brittany had a large com- 

 mercial as well as naval fleet, with which they carried on trade with 

 the opposite coast of Britain. But there was a prehistoric trade-route 

 in amber which ran from the Baltic to the Adriatic through the valleys 

 of the Elbe and Danube, and which Montelius has shown goes back to 

 to the Neolithic epoch, while amber was carried at an early date from 

 the Baltic to Britain, and the gold of Ireland and Wales was conveyed 

 to Scandinavia." 



On the next page (p. 19) Mr. H. R. Hall, of the British Museum, adds 

 a further note:—" At Deir el-Bahari we discovered thousands of blue 

 glaze beads of the exact particular type (already well known from other 

 Egyptian diggings) of those found in Britain. Ours are, in all proba- 

 bility, mostly of the time of Hatshepsut, and so date to about 1500 B.C. 

 In the third volume of The Xlth Dynasty Temple at Deir el-Bahari 

 which has lately appeared, I noted (p. 17) the identity of our Deir 



el-Bahari beads with those that have been found in Britain 



what I said was " long segmental beads occur, of an interesting type, 

 identical with similar ' faience ' or ' frit ' beads found in deposits of the 

 Middle Bronze Age in Crete and Western Europe, even so far as Britain, 

 as for example at Lake and Tan Hill in Wiltshire. There can be little 

 doubt that the blue segmental beads from Lake and Tan Hill are of 

 Egyptian make, and so date at the earliest to about 1500 B.C. They 

 are found in Egypt as late as about 1200 B.C. probably. That they 

 were imported into Britain long after the period 1500—1200 B.C. is 

 hardly likely. . . . We are not here dealing with imitations ; these 

 are actual Egyptian beads." 



Prof. Sayce's note is illustrated by a good photo of the necklace of 

 thirty-two beads from Barrow 6 at Upton Lovell, comprising ten of 

 these cylindrical segmental or notched beads of what has been called 

 " glass," but should perhaps be rather described as " vitreous paste," 

 together with a similar long bead from a barrow at Lake. 



It was suggested that the actual identity of the Wiltshire with the 

 Egyptian beads might perhaps be proved by an analysis of their re- 

 spective composition, but upon enquiry as to this, it was found that a 

 considerable number of beads would have to be sacrificed if any definite 

 conclusion was to be reached by this means, and this did not seem 

 justifiable. Prof. Flinders Petrie has exchanged examples of the 

 Egyptian beads for one of our Wiltshire specimens, and the former will 

 be exhibited at Devizes side by side with the barrow examples for 

 comparison. 



Prof. Sayce speaks of the beads from the barrows as of " faience." It 

 seems that the Egyptian beads in question were either of " faience," i.e., 

 a blue glaze on a sandy substance of a cream or greyish colour, or of a 

 " paste " or " composition " coloured blue throughout. The damp of our 



