Page:Prehistoric Britain.djvu/171

Rh (British Barrows, p. 210) is almost a facsimile of some of the Hallstatt types.

But perhaps the most remarkable objects were the mountings of some girdle bands and a number of large vessels made of bronze. The latter were adorned with geometrical patterns, animal, figures, either engraved or in repoussé work, involving a great variety of art elements—points, zigzag lines, concentric circles, spirals, triangles, crosses, stars, wheels, as well as the forms of plants, beasts and human beings. Some of the vessels had round bottoms and others were like pails (situlæ), either cylindrical or bulging upwards, and again contracting a little towards the mouth. They had generally one or two movable handles attached to the top like a modern water-pitcher, or small handles fixed to the sides of the vessel. The larger specimens were made of beaten bronze riveted together, and when found they were either empty or contained only bones of animals. The lid of one of the situlæ was ornamented with a group of fantastic animals which strongly remind one of the winged animals of Assyria. The cylindrical cists—ciste a cordoni of Italian archæologists—have a series of parallel ridges or cordons running round the body. These vessels, which spread over Central and Western Europe to the number of some fifty, but did not reach Britain, were in some places used as cinerary urns.

It may be noted, as a point of some significance, that neither silver nor lead has been