Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 1.djvu/248

230 L'ancresse; they are of the finer sort of clay, and appear entirely done by the hand without any mould or lathe.

The round and oval compressed clay-beads discovered at L'ancresse, as well as at Carnac, cannot but excite enquiry as to their use; their size would render them inconvenient to be worn round the neck as ornaments, but if used only at the funeral rites, they would tend to express the feelings of the attendants on those mournful occasions, and, as we observe in the customs of other nations, they would be laid with the remains left in the sepulchre. Stone and bone annulets were also found with them; the former are of serpentine, clay-slate, and lapis ollaris, and are known among the country-people as "Les rouettes des Feêtaux;" these were worn, and perhaps believed to possess some preservative charm, as the amulet of after ages. A few beads of bone were also discovered.

The form and quality of the earthen vessels denote a very early attempt of that art which in other parts of the world had arrived at a high state of perfection. The vases of Greece and Rome possess all the qualifications to distinguish them from those of the Barbarians of the west. The very coarse material used by the latter, and the laboured devices seen on their sides, effected at the expense of much time and rude contrivance, convey to the mind those equally-laboured engravings on the war-clubs of the Indians of the Southern ocean, the similarity of the ornaments also producing the same conviction of the very primitive attempts at ornamental design. There is, however, enough left, amidst the mass of fragments of the pottery of this period, to mark an improvement in the taste of design, as well as in the quality of the clay used. Some of the Celtic pottery in my possession is scarcely inferior to some Roman jars discovered near Etaples in France, which may be dated about the period of the invasion of Britain by Cæsar.

The paucity of models and design may stigmatize the first occupiers of Britain and Gaul, but we must not lose sight of their simple state of life, the absence of luxury and ease, and the infancy of taste and genius; a fair estimate may thus be formed of the primitive race of these countries, and it may be seen that they do not fall below the standard of the early inhabitants of Italy or Greece.

The cromlech situate on the promontory of Le Rée, named Le Creux des Feés, is open at the eastern end, through which