THE EARLY AGE OF GREECE VOL.I by W.Ridgeway 1901

'
THE BROOCH. 585
fibula, an attempt which, as we shall soon see, was much
more successful in another form of fibula.
The occurrence of a few authentic examples of the La Tene
br(wch, of La Tene swords at Lisnacroghera, Co. Antrim, of an
oblong shield (Fig. 100) of the
Gaulish type, and the practice
of cremation by some chieftain
families during a limited period
in certain parts of Ireland
(p. 505), taken in connection
with the stories of fair-haired
brooch-wearing immigrants into
L'eland, all point to a Celtic
invasion of the north of Ireland
in the La Tene period. Such
an invasion would n(^t
^^3
Fk;. 189. Bronze Fibula ;
Navan Eath.
have taken place before that of Britain
by the Belgic tribes. We may therefore conjecturally place it
some time before the Christian era, between 250 B.C. and the
tin)e of Christ. After all the legendary date for the meeting
of Edain and Midir may not be far wi-ong.
It would then appear that as the fair-haired Acheans
brought the brooch into Greece, so others of the same stock
carried it even to distant Britain and the still uKjre remote
Ireland. It
may well be that the fibulae found in the Caucasus
are the relics of some of the Cimmerii, who by the eighth
century had made their way from the Danube into southern
Russia and perhaps into Armenia (p. .S9()).
But th(.'
hinge seen in the Weetiiig brooch (Fig. 1'^-)
was not the only kind which was evolved
fi'oni the Celtic bijatci'al spi'ing.
As has
been already stated, this tyj)c was the
parent of he llonian t
]iio\
iucial tibula, of the
T slia]ie,
so coininou in Fi'anee' and Uritain
(Fig. 140). The lattei'liad in its turn given
birth to the ci'iicitonn t\|)e
worn by the
Franks and othei' (lennanie ])eoj)les
in the
aiiy eeiil uries of our era, and bv the Scandinavians much later.
MiJirl, /.,/ CluniijiiiiiiK' Soittirraiiir, j).
I'.l7 (willi liKtu't')-
lirilish ISruoch, licittisliaiii,
Caiiiliriil^'t'.
586 THE BROOCH.
When the Angles passed from their own homes in
Holstein
into England, each of them wore at least two of these cruciform
brooches. In the simpler forms their descent from the
T-shaped fibula is very evident (Fig. 141), though in the large
and highly elaborated specimens
all resemblance to the
prototype has disappeared
(Fig. 142).
_
jBut besides the ' spectacle'
fibula the simple spiral
of the Bronze Age was the
parent of another type of
brooch, which has lasted down
to our day.
We saw that from the
brooches formed of two or
Fig. 141.
more spirals came those where
Anglo-Saxon Brooch (Anglian
type), Eriswell, Suffolk i.
the discs are no longer mere
spirals of wire, but are now
thin plates of metal (p. 437): it is therefore probable that from
the single disc of spiral wire developed the Celtic circular
brooches found at Hallstatt and occasionally in England
(Fig. 143)'-. That here figured, like No. 131, is from Suffolk,
the land of the Iceni. It resembles the bronze ornaments
attached to the horse-trappings found in a tomb with a chariot
on which a Gaulish Avarrior had been seated in death-'.
From the latter perhaps sprung the circular brooch of the
Roman period often inlaid with enamel, such as that here
engraved^ (Fig. 144).
We may likewise regard as the progeny of the spiral
disc the circular brooches of the Anglo-Saxon period found
chiefiv in Kent, Isle of Wight, Oxfordshire, Berkshire,
'
This brooch (in my own possession) was found witli a line and niuch
larger t)ne in a grave
-
*
in SulTolk.
Tliis specimen is in my own possession.
Morel, La ClKuiijxuiiir Siuttcrraine, PI. x. \os. .'{. S, 12, 11, p. 4(i.
*
Tliis sjjecinien is in my own possession. Tlie whole centre space is tilled
with red and blue enamel.