Part 29 (1/2)
Industrial Skill and Agriculture during the Bronze Epoch--The Invention of Gla.s.s--Invention of Weaving.
The manufacture of pottery, which appears to have remained stationary during the Stone Age, a.s.sumed a considerable development during the bronze epoch. The clay intended for making pottery was duly puddled, and the objects when moulded were baked in properly formed furnaces. At this date also commences the art of surfacing articles of earthenware.
The specimens of pottery which have been found in the settlements of man of this period are both numerous and interesting; entire vessels have indeed been discovered. We notice indications of very marked progress beyond the objects of this kind manufactured in the preceding age. They are still fas.h.i.+oned by the hand and without the aid of the wheel; but the shapes are both more varied in their character and more elegant. In addition to this, although in the larger kind of vessels the clay used is still rough in its nature and full of hard lumps of quartz like the material employed in the Stone Age, that of the smaller vessels is much finer, and frequently covered with a black lead coating.
Most of these vessels are characterised by a conical base, a shape which we had before occasion to point out in the stag's-horn vessels of the Stone Age. If, therefore, it was requisite to place them upright, the lower ends of them had to be stuck into the earth, or to be placed in holders hollowed out to receive them.
Some of these supports, or holders, have been discovered. They are called _torches_, or _torcheres_, by French archaeologists.
Figs. 198 and 199 give a representation of a bronze vessel from the lacustrine habitations of Switzerland with its support or _torchere_.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 198.--Earthenware Vessel with Conical Bottom, from the Lacustrine Habitations of Switzerland.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 199.--Earthen Vessel placed on its support.]
In a general way, the vessels made with conical bases have no handles; but others, on the contrary, are provided with them (fig. 200). They are nearly always ornamented with some sort of design, either mere lines parallel to the rim, triangles, chevrons, or rows of points round the handle or the neck. Even the very roughest specimens are not altogether devoid of ornamentation, and a stripe may often be observed round the neck, on which the fingers of the potter have left their traces.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 200.--Fragment of an Earthen Vessel with a Handle.]
These vessels were intended to contain beverages and substances used for food. Out of one of them M. Desor took some apples, cherries, wild plums, and a large quant.i.ty of nuts. Some of these vessels, perforated with small holes, were used in the manufacture of cheese. Dishes, porringers, &c., have also been found.
Relics of the pottery of the Stone Age are very frequently recovered from the Swiss lakes; but vessels in an entire state are seldom met with. It is, however, stated as a fact, that considerable acc.u.mulations of them once existed; but, unfortunately, the importance of them was not recognised until too late. An old fisherman of the Lake of Neuchatel told M. Desor that in his childhood he had sometimes amused himself by pus.h.i.+ng at _these old earthen pots_ with a long pole, and that in certain parts of the lake there were _real mountains_ of them. At the present day, the ”old earthen pots” are all broken, and nothing but pieces can be recovered.
These relics are, however, sufficient to afford a tolerably exact idea of the way in which the primitive Swiss used to fas.h.i.+on clay. They seem to denote large vessels either cylindrical (figs. 201 and 202) or bulbous-shaped with a flat bottom, moulded by the hand without the aid of a potter's wheel. The material of which they are composed is rough, and of a grey or black colour, and is always mingled with small grains of quartz; the baking of the clay is far from satisfactory.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 201.--Vessel of Baked Clay, from the Lacustrine Settlements of Switzerland.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 202.--Vessel of Baked Clay, from the Lacustrine Settlements of Switzerland.]
The ornamentation is altogether of an ordinary character. It generally consists of mere lines traced out in the soft clay, either by the finger, a pointed stick, or sometimes a string was used. There are neither curves nor arabesques of any kind; the lines are almost always straight.
A few of the vessels are, however, decorated in a somewhat better style.
Some are provided with small projections perforated with holes, through which might be pa.s.sed a string for the purpose of hanging them up; there are others which have a row of studs arranged all round them, just below the rim, and others, indeed, in which hollows take the place of the studs. Several have been met with which are pierced with holes at different heights; it is supposed that they were used in the preparation of milk-curd, the holes being made to let out the whey. The vessels of this period are entirely devoid of handles; this ornament did not appear until the bronze age.
Mill-stones, or stones for crus.h.i.+ng grain, are not unfrequently found in the Swiss lakes.
At some date during the period we are now discussing we must place the discovery of gla.s.s. Gla.s.s beads of a blue or green colour are, in fact, found in the tombs of the bronze epoch. What was their origin? Chemistry and metallurgy combine to inform us that as soon as bronze foundries existed gla.s.s must have been discovered. What, in fact, does gla.s.s consist of? A silicate with a basis of soda and potash, combined with some particles of the silicates of iron and copper, which coloured it blue and green. As the scoria from bronze foundries is partly composed of these silicates it is indubitable that a kind of gla.s.s was formed in the earliest metal-works where this alloy was made. It const.i.tuted the slag or dross of the metal works.
Thus, the cla.s.sic tradition which attributes the invention of gla.s.s to certain Phoenician merchants, who produced a ma.s.s of gla.s.s by heating on the sand the _natron_, that is _soda_, brought from Egypt, ascribe too recent a date to the discovery of this substance. It should properly be carried back to the bronze epoch.
The working of amber was carried out to a very great extent by these peoples. Ornaments and objects of this material have been discovered in great abundance in the lacustrine settlements of Switzerland.
On the whole, if we compare the industrial skill of the bronze age with that of the preceding age, we shall find that the later is vastly superior to the earlier.
The art of weaving seems to have been invented during the stone age. We have positive and indisputable proofs that the people who lived during this epoch were acquainted with the art of manufacturing cloth.[36] All the objects which we have thus far considered do not, in fact, surpa.s.s those which might be expected from any intelligent savage; but the art of preparing and manufacturing textile fabrics marks out one of the earliest acquisitions of man's civilisation.
In the Museum of Saint-Germain we may both see and handle some specimens of woven cloth which were met with in some of the lacustrine settlements in Switzerland, and specially at Robenhausen and w.a.n.gen. This cloth, which is represented in fig. 203, taken from a specimen in the Museum of Saint-Germain, is formed of twists of interwoven flax; of rough workmans.h.i.+p, it is true, but none the less remarkable, considering the epoch in which it was manufactured. It is owing to the fact of their having been charred and buried in the peat that these remains of pre-historic fabrics have been kept in good preservation up to the present time.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 203.--Cloth of the Bronze Age, found in the Lacustrine Settlements of Switzerland.]