rupted by grooves running from the centre to some distance beyond the outer circle. It is noteworthy that the cup-and-rings with gutter channels have not been found outside the British Isles.
The distribution of spirals, which is remarkable in many ways, has lately attracted much attention throughout Europe. The great development of this ornament in Mycenæ is now generally accepted by archæologists as the result of direct intercourse between Crete, Egypt and the shores and islands of the Ægean Sea, during the Eighteenth Dynasty (1580–1320 B.C.). From these regions there is reason to believe that it spread into Europe by the Danube route. That this was the route by which the spiral ornament reached Bavaria, North Germany and Scandinavia, is proved by the fact that it is not found as an ornament on the bronze remains of North Italy, France and Britain.
CHAPTER VII
EARLY IRON AGE—HALLSTATT—LA TÈNE—LATE CELTIC
The art of making bronze was probably an Egyptian invention, but its introduction into Britain was, in the first instance, in the form of finished objects of the earliest types, such as the small hand daggers, awls, pins,
