Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 4.djvu/215

 FOUND IN CUERDALE. 197 ancient pillars and crosses which abound in various northern countries. All nations in the earliest stages of their existence seem to have delighted in decorating their persons with natural objects or imitations of them, and to have indulged themselves in making images of animals and human beings, either for ornament or worship ; probabl}^ objects originally intended only for ornament degenerated into objects of superstitious worship. Such was probably the position of the northern nations when their intercourse with the Romans commenced ; after that period they imitated the forms of their more cultivated visitors, and their coins and other works of art bear evident marks of the influence of Greece and Rome. Such influence was indeed feeble and ineffective, still however it existed, and as the religion they professed did not in their estimation prohibit the representation of human or animal forms, they employed them in decoration, as nature had prompted, and Rome had instructed them. The ornaments therefore immediately under notice, may safely be considered as the productions of those northern districts in which they are generally found. The remaining class of ornaments to be examined varies re- markably in workmanship from those which have been already described. In those there has been reason to believe that the rude instruments of the hammer and punch alone were used ; but upon these there are evidences of much more advanced modes of operation. There are wires of various dimensions, the thicker cvideritly formed by the hammer, and belonging to the class which has already been considered oriental ; but the vires of smaller diameter, scarcely larger than a hair, must have been di'awn through a gauge, very much in the manner in which such things are manufactured in the present day. It is not only in the wire itself that evidence is per- ceptible of a more ingenious process of manufacture, but in the mode of applying it, in the production of several useful and elegant ornaments ; by making transverse bars across the wire, as in figg. 71 and 75, previous to twisting two of them together, the -whole when completed has the appearance of a cord of many threads. The chain, fig. 80, is very elegant in form, and rather intricate in arrangement ; the small frag- ment, fig. 81, which is a portion of a quadrangular tube, is perhaps more elegant, and displays more ingenuity. The armlet, fig. 81, is perhaps still more so, the wire itself is VOL. IV. D d