Remarks on a bronze implement, and bones of the ox and dog, found in a bed of undisturbed gravel at kinleith, near Currie, Mid-Lothian / by John Alex. Smith.

Date:
1864
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on a bronze implement, and bones of the ox and dog, found in a bed of undisturbed gravel at kinleith, near Currie, Mid-Lothian / by John Alex. Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    is quite apparent (see fig. 4, copied from M. Troyon's work, pi. x. fig. 8; and, like the others, drawn to half its original size). Its size also closely corresponds to the others; the blades on each side measuring 2^ inches, nearly ahout the same length as the blades of the other bronzes described, and the projecting handle 2i inches; its whole length being about 4^ inches, by about 3 inches in breadth measured transversely across the crescentic blades. The Kinleith bronze being 3J inches in length by 2^ inches across; and each blade measuring 2^ inches in length; while the Irish bronze measures 3J inches long, by If inches across its solid double-edged blade. I examined M. Troyon's very valuable work, with a special interest, to learn what was his opinion of the supposed use of this blade, or crescent of bronze as he terms it, and found that he gives a very different explanation to the one here suggested, and having nothing whatever to do with the affairs of the toilet I It was dis- covered, M. Troyon informs us, at Steinberg, near Nidau, which, he says, is one of the most important piled sites on the Lake of Bienne. He describes it as belonging to the age of bronze ; and refers it to a class of other crescent-shaped articles ^of pottery also found there, and considered by him as of particular interest, because that to them, he fancies, some mysterious or supernatural character had been attached. Swiss Crescents of Pottery and Bronze.—Colonel Schwab, M. Troyon informs us, discovered at Steinberg more than a score of these crescents, formed of a coarse white pottery, ornamented with various lines, and having broken particles of quartz kneaded into the clay of which they were formed. They vary in size, measuring from 8 to 12 (French) inches, from point to point of the horns of the crescent; and at the horns they are from 6 to 8 inches in height. (I exhibit sketches of these articles, copied from M. Troyon's work, which will show their character better than any description.y The lake town of Steinberg, M. Troyon believes, was occupied from a very ancient period; he considers, however, that this symbol of the crescent had not been in use in the very earliest times, or it would have been found in other places along with the most ancient class of remains, which appears not to be the case, as far at least as present discoveries have shown. In 1851, however, at Ebersberg, not far from Berg, in the Canton of Zurich, several fragments of similar crescents, formed of stone, were found along with very ancient remains, M. Troyon, therefore, concludes that