Page:Once a Week Volume 7.djvu/566

---

field which the pillagers never returned to recover.

Figure 3 b exhibits a gold collar, one perhaps of the earliest known types. It is called the “funicular,” from the shapes of the cup-like termini. This gorget is peculiarly Celtic: similar examples are frequently found in Ireland, some also in Europe. It was probably worn as a collar round the neck, although some authorities have suggested that it might have been worn on the top of the head with the circular ends behind the ears.

A torc of the purest gold was found, a few years since, at the mouth of a fox’s earth in Needwood Forest. It weighed 1 lb. 1 oz. 7 dwts.

The graves of Scandinavia and northern Asia exhibit in tumuli scattered over vast and inhospitable steppes many examples of gold ornaments and breastplates. An early population of England, whether Celtic or Gallo-British, known to the Phœnicians long before the advent of Cæsar, were considered as skilful artificers in metals. The instrument denominated a “Celt” was probably of their handicraft, yet from the numbers of these relics accumulated together in certain spots it is