at New Grange and at Lough Crew is ornamented with various carvings in spirals, concentric circles, flamboyants, and zig-zags, forming part of the Prehistoric series defined by Mr. Franks as the late Celtic, and which are to be seen on many of the early Christian crosses and inscribed stones in Scotland, and in many of the illuminated Irish missals. These, however, are more rude and archaic than any of the above, and seem to me more likely to belong to a pre-Christian era rather than to the first four centuries after Christ, to which they are referred by Mr. Fergusson. They belong to a time before history began in Ireland, and before the introduction of Christianity, when the dead were burned and their ashes placed in the above-mentioned stone basins.
The Art.
The peculiar art of the Prehistoric Iron age[1] in Britain, termed late or Neo-Celtic, is represented in its simplest form in Fig. 161, taken from the bronze sheath of an iron dagger found in the river Witham, and is met with in various personal ornaments, horse-trappings, and other articles, in Britain and Ireland. It is present on the sculptured stones of Scotland (Figs. 162, 163), frequently in combination with the mystic Z emblem, and the double-mirror pattern (see Fig. 162), and sometimes along with the broken sceptre and the crescent, the snake, and a curious animal formed of flowing lines in which the natural shape is only to be recognised because it forms one of a series (Fig. 163). In its more ornate
- ↑ For examples of this art, see Kemble and Franks, Horæ Ferales; Wilde, Catalogue of Antiq. in R. I. Academy, I.; Stuart, Sculptured Stones of Scotland; Wilson, Prehistoric Annals of Scotland.
