Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 55.djvu/31

Rh beginnings of its use. In this early combination of bronze and iron the Hallstatt culture is in strong contrast with the rest of Europe. Almost everywhere else, as in Hungary for example, a pure bronze age—sometimes one even of copper also—intervenes between the use of stone and iron. Here, however, the two metals, bronze and iron, appear simultaneously. There is no evidence of a use of bronze alone. Bearing in mind, what we shall subsequently emphasize in the case of Scandinavia, that in that remote part of Europe man had to put up with the inferior metal for close upon a thousand years before the acquisition of a better substitute, it will be seen that at Hallstatt a remarkable foreshortening of cultural evolution had ensued. Iron, as we have said, was still comparatively rare. Only in the case of small objects, less often in the blades of bronze-handled swords, does this more precious metal appear. But it is far more common than in the earliest Greek civilizations made known to us by Schliemann and others.

Pages of description would not give so clear an idea of this early civilization as the pictures of their lives, which the Hallstatt people have fortunately left to us. These are found in repoussé upon their bronzes, and particularly upon their little situlæ, or metallic pails. These situlæ are, in fact, the most distinctive feature among all the objects which they have left to us. By means of them their civilization has been most accurately traced and identified geographically. On the opposite page we have reproduced the design upon the most celebrated of these situlæ, discovered by Deschmann in 1882, at Watsch in the Tyrol. Another from Bologna, typical of the pre-Etruscan Italian time, will be found upon a later page. Upon each of these, the skill manifested in the representation of men and animals is no less remarkable than the civilization which it depicts. The upper zone of this situla from Watsch apparently shows a festal procession, possibly a wedding, for a lady rides in the second chariot. The grooms and outriders betoken a party of distinction. As for the second zone, doubt as to its exact interpretation prevails. Hochstetter declares it to be a banquet, food and entertainment being offered to the personages seated upon chairs at the left. Bertrand is disposed to give it more of a religious interpretation. As for the contest between gladiators armed with the cestus, all is plain. The spectators, judges, even the ram and the helmet for reward of the victor, are all shown in detail. It is not necessary for us to cite more evidence. A civilization already far from primitive is surely depicted. As for its date, all are agreed that it is at least as early as ten centuries before Christ; not far, that is to say, from the supposed Homeric epoch in Greece.