If
m •
82 CRANIA BRITANNICA. [Chaï. V.
of ivory, as pins or bodkins for the liair and dress, buttons and tweezers, have frequently been
found in Wiltshire ia barrows of the British period, and ia one instance in a tumulus near
Stonehenge, a large ai'mlet of this substance was met with *. In one of the barrows at Arras
in Yorkshire, there was found a curious pendent ornament, and a beautiful fibula, of a
Roman, though peculiar type, which were apparently covered with ivoryt.
Rich ornaments of amber for the neck and breast have often been discovered, with sepulchral
remains of the British period, in different parts of England. Among these are the plates of a
rhomboidal form, two to three inches ia length, and one and a half to two inches in breadth, sis
or eight in number, and perforated edgewise, so as to form, when strung on threads, a breast
ornament, of oblong or subovoid form J. Large necklaces of amber beads, amounting sometimes
to several hundi-eds, of a roimd, flat, or elegant pendent shape, and regularly graduated in size,
have often been taken from barrows indisputably of the British period, in several instances where
the human remains were those of males §. The use of amber survived the period of the Roman
domination; and Anem-in, speaking of the leader of the Britons of Bryneich, says,
" Amber beads in ringlets encircled his temples.
Precious was the amber, worth a banquet of wine| l."
Amber is a product of Britain, being found, though usually in small quantities and of inferior
quality, in the alluvial gravel on the eastern coast of both England and Scotland^f. That it was
known as a native product to the Ancient Britons, can hardly be doubted, from what Pliny, on
the authority of Sotacus, says as to its being found in this country**. The material of some of
the amber beads from British bai-rows may likely enough have been indigenous; but that this
was not principally the case, appears evident from the barrows in which the finest ornaments of
amber have been found being in the south of England, rather than in the east of the island;
which favours the view of their having been introduced as merchandize from Gaul. That they
were imported in the wrought state is probable, from the notice of Strabo; whilst the elegant
form of some of the beads is in favour of their Italian workmanship, and the character of the
perforations cleai'ly shows that the lathe has been used in their fabrication f t - The amber of
* Hoare, "Ancient "Wilts," vol. i, p. 124. The fine ivory
armilla fomid in a barrow at Woodyates ( lb. p. 235. plate 22 B),
from the mode of burial and objects of iron which accompanied
it, must be assigned to the Anglo-Saxon period.
t Description of Ancient British Skull from a Barrow at
Arras, E. R. Yorkshire.
X Hoare, "Ancient Wilts," vol. i. p. 46, 99, 213. plate 3.
§ Hoare, ib. pp. 76, 99, 212. plates 9, 11,31 A. See also
the fine necklaces of amber, found in Ireland. ArchEeological
Journal, vol. is. p. 304 ; vol. x. p. 161. The British amber
beads are distinguished by their regular and often elegant
form, from those of the Anglo-Saxon period ; which latter are
little more than amorphous lumps of various sizes, perforated
for suspension. Nearly a thousand amber beads were found by
Mr. Cunnington with a single skeleton in the barrow at Upton
Lovell, Wilts, already referred to for the golden ornaments
found in it. This combination of gold and amber, so often
observed, proves satisfactorily that of these materials the favorite
ornaments of the more distinguished of the Britons were
formed. A curious cup of amber, now in the Museum at
Brighton, capable of holding nearly half a pint, was recently
found in a British tumulus near that place. With it was a stone
axe and whetstone, and a dagger of bronze. Archieological
Journal, 1856, vol. xiii. p. 183.
II Gododin, 40, 41.
^ Boece, by Bellenden, chap. 15. Camden, by Gougb,
vol. iii. p. 320 ; vol. iv. p. 170. Pennant's Tour, vol. ii. p. 15.
Phillips, "Rivers, Mountains and Sea-coast of Yorkshire,"
p. 256. Amber in considerable masses has sometimes been
found on the eastern coast of Britain ; in one instance a piece
as large as the body of a horse was obtained at Buchanness,
Aberdeenshire. The writer found a small lump of unwrought
amber in a British barrow at Huggate on the Yorkshire Wolds,
which had probably been obtained from the coast of Holderness.
** Pliny, lib. xxxvii. § 11. Pliny (lib. xxxvi. § 38) calls
Sotacus "vetustissimus auctor," but it does not appear that his
age is known.
t t This seems clear, from a careful examination of a fine
amber collar in the collection of the Rev. E. Duke, of Lake near
Salisbury, for which we are indebted to that gentleman. In
these beads and discs of amber (which have been described
Chap. V.] HISTORICAL ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. 83
which they were made was probably derived from different sources. Strabo indeed speaks of it
under the name of ligurkm (kjnourion of Pliny) ; but it is by no means clear from the terms in
which he elsewhere mentions the coarse Ligurian amber*, to which this name was more properly
restricted, that he intended to exclude that finer sort from the shores of the Venedi and iEstyi
in the east of the Baltic, which reached Italy chiefly, if not entirely, by an inland trade, tln-ough
Pannonia. A third source of amber, nearer to Britain than either of the others, were the
islands called Glessariaj, from the German name of this substance, gles (glass), and which became
well known to the Romans about ten years b.c. through the expedition and victories of Drusus.
These islands, called Austeravia and Aotania by the natives, were clearly in the German ocean,
and must have belonged to that chain of islets, which stretches in front of the Erisian coast and
of the mouths of the Ems, the "Weser, and the Elbef. They are probably the same with the
amber island, explored, as may be believed by Pytheas, in the fom-th centm-y b.c.Î ; and which
there can be little doubt, as the early traditions on these very coasts of the visits of Hcrctiles
serve to show§, were visited at a much earlier period by the Phoenicians, for the sake of the
amber which they produced ||. There is no proof that any of the amber of these islands or of the
Baltic reached Britain by a dh-ect trade, in pre-Roman times.
Glass beads are not uncommon in British barrows. To a great extent they are of a coarse
description of glass, of a light green or bluish colour, resembling a common modern bugle, but
notched on the side, so as to give the appearance of several beads in one piece^f. Beads of larger
size and much better workmanship are met with, but not frequently. Such, however, was the
large necklace, comprising three very fine types of beads, found in the barrow at Arras already
referred to, and which probably belongs to the first century of om' sera**. Single beads of large
size seem to have been worn as amulets, either on the wrist or suspended from the neck or girdle,
forming probably the objects to which the story of Pliny of the ovum angainum refers, and to
which it is certain that the stiU existing belief of the Welsh peasantry, under the name of glaimneidr,
and that in the Scottish Lowlands, under the name of adder-stane, attachesft- The glass
beads imported into Britain in pre-Roman times were probably from the workshops of Sidon and
by Sir R. C. Hoare, "Ancient Wilts," vol. i. p. 213. plate 3,
31.), the symmetrical roundness and accuracy of the perforations
leave no doubt that they have been made from side to side,
and by an instrument of the nature of a lathe.
» Strabo, lib. iv. c. 6. % 2.
t Pliny, lib. iv. § 27. ap. fin. 30. lib. xxxvii. § 11 (3). Austeravia
has been identified with the isle of Ameland.
X Pliny, lib. iv. ^27. ap. med. lib. xxxvii. § 11 (2). It has
generally been supposed that the amber island of Pytheas,
Abalus or Basileia, is to be sought for in the Baltic, and that it
is to be connected with the amber coast of the Venedi and
jEstyi (the present Kurish Nehrung), already referred to.
Alexander v. Humboldt (Cosmos by Ottd, vol. ii. p. 493, copied
in Smith's "Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography,"
article "Oceanus Septentrionalis") gives good reasons for believing
that the voyage of Pytheas did not extend beyond the
Elbe, and that his Abalus must be identified with the Oceanic
Glessai'ioe of Pliny,"where the necessary " t ides" exist.
5 Tacitus, Germ. c. 2, 34. Ann. lib. ii. c. 12. It is unnecessary
to show, that by the visits of Hercules, are generally
to be understood the visits of Phoenician voyagers and the
worship paid by them to their tutelary divinity—Melkarth or
Hercules.
11 That the traders in amber in the earliest times were the
Phcenicians is almost certain, from the manner in which this
trafiic is connected by Herodotus with that in tin. Lib. iii.
c. 115.
^ Such is the form of the glass beads occasionally found in
the barrows of Wiltshire.—Hoare, "Ancient Wilts," vol. i.
p. 46, 76. plates 3, 9.
** See the description of Ancient British Skull from Barrow
at Arras, for a more precise account, and figures of these beads,
and for their chemical analysis.
t t Pliny, hh. xxix. § 12. Camden, by Gough.vol.iii. p. 203
At the Meeting of the Archseological Institute at Edinburgh, in
1856, a beautiful glass bead of annular form, and of the sort
called " adder-stane," was exhibited, which had been strung
along with a seal of fine topaz on the skin of a snake. The
whole was highly prized by the family of the lady to whom it
belonged, and it had been resorted to, even in recent times, for
the cure of the diseases of children. Such beads, whether of
smaller or larger size, often exhibit the figure of a serpent en