Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/471

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The designs introduced into Britain in the Prehistoric Iron age still survive. The volutes and flamboyants on the metal-work of the Prehistoric inhabitants of Britain and Ireland are found on ornaments proved by the associated coins to belong to the fifth or sixth centuries after Christ. The example here figured (Fig. 166) is that of a bronze brooch, ornamented in repoussé, found in the Victoria Cave. The same designs are conspicuous in the illuminated Irish manuscripts, such as the Gospel of St. Patrick, the book of Kells, and others, on early Irish Christian chalices, and on caskets discovered in France and Scandinavia. They also occur in the ornamentation of many engraved stones and crosses found in Scotland, and ranging at least as late as, and probably later than, the twelfth century.

The silver ornaments discovered in the Norries Law tumulus, in Largo Bay on the Firth of Forth, are also to be classified with the late Celtic art, which survived into the Historic period. The flamboyant design of Fig. 166 is to be seen in a silver plate in combination with the