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race, must have been planted in Ireland at various times, and that the Pelasgi, or whoever were the constructors of the cyclopean buildings, who preceded the Etruscans in Italy, must also have found their way to Ireland. The Firbolgs of the battle of Moytura, it must be observed, are no longer the rude Belgæ, described by Sir Wm. Wilde as found entombed with flint weapons and shell ornaments, but with no remains of metal, covered with huge stones and a mound of earth; they have attained to the knowledge of metal weapons, have chiefs or kings, a settled government, and a religion described as Druidical, and apparently similar to that of their opponents, the Tuatha de Dannans.

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This change we can only suppose to have been caused by foreign influence, and for this foreign influence we must look to countries already acquainted with the use of metal, and practising that mode of architecture, and those religious rites, which they would seem to have introduced among the Firbolgs, whose name Warner translates as creeping or cave men,' although Keating gives a legend that they were the descendants of the first Greek colonists, who had returned to Greece, been made slaves of there, and afterwards seized Greek ships and returned to Ireland, and he derives the term Firbolg from Fir, signifying men, and Bolg, a bag, from the leathern bags they had been compelled to wear, to carry clay dug from pits to the top of hills, to make a soil upon the rocks for cultivation.1

I do not know what traces of the terraced cultivation, so much in use in Southern Europe, are to be found in Ireland, but the leathern bag may have another signification, for in the very interesting account given by Gmelin, Lepechin, and Pallas, of the mines worked on the south-east borders of the Ural mountains, presumably by the Arimaspi, prior to the conquest of the country by the Tatars, and before any knowledge of iron, we are told-"Besides some implements, the use of which is unknown, there were wedges and

1 Keating's History of Ireland.

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hammers all of copper that had been smelted, but without any particle of gold in them. Instead of sledges they seemed to have used large stones of a long shape, on which are to be seen marks which show that handles had been fastened to them. They seem to have scraped out the gold with the fangs of boars, and collected it in leather bags or pockets, some of which have been found."1 Now, as there seems to be no doubt that it was the search for metal-whether gold, tin, or copper -which tempted foreigners to our shores in the remote times of which we are speaking, and as it is well known that gold was found in Ireland in considerable quantities, we seem to see in these Firbolgs, with their leather bags, a colony of miners from Asia or from Greece, establishing themselves where they found the precious metal, making themselves kings or chiefs over the barbarous natives, instructing them in the arts, especially of metallurgy, and giving to them their own name (Firbolgs). That gold was an article of commerce in very early times in Ireland is proved by numerous discoveries of ingots, as well as of manufactured articles, in bogs, and in excavations for railways, &c. Vol. III. of the Archæologia gives a long list of discoveries of gold in Irish bogs, amongst the articles being several ingots, some of which are described as of the form of "heaters for smoothing," three of them weighing seven pounds and a half; whilst the innumerable manufactured articles prove that it was not only miners and merchants who thus established themselves, but also artificers of no mean skill.

The question arises whether these artificers were the Firbolgs, or that later race, designated as Tuatha de Dannans, whom I have ventured to regard as Etruscans?

Returning to the three cups and other articles of gold with which I commenced this chapter, I may point out that Dr. Evans compares the Cornish cup with one of amber found near Brighton, and with another of Kimmeridge shale found at Broad Down near Honiton, the

1 Jacobs' Historical Enquiry into the Production and Consumption of the Precious Metals.

latter being very similar in shape; but if we go thus far for analogies, we may perhaps be allowed still further scope, and refer to sculptured monuments in Tartary, upon which a figure appears holding a cup of a very similar shape, and also, if the engravings are to be trusted, of the same corrugated pattern, as though it were an object of veneration, or of some especial significance. It may possibly have been a golden cup similar to these, of which we are told that Darius the Great, having one only, valued it so highly that he placed it every night under his pillow.

We thus seem to be able to trace cups of this particular pattern from Tartary to Greece, Etruria, and Great Britain, and may ask whether they were manufactured originally in Tartary, possibly by the Arimaspi, of whom so many fables have been related, carried by their owners from place to place, perhaps for purposes of divination, and at last buried with them as their most precious possession.

If the Firbolgs were Scythians, and acquainted with metallurgic arts, it is of course possible that articles of this especial furrowed pattern might have been manufactured by them in Ireland, and thence dispersed; but if the Firbolgs are in any way to be identified with the rude miners of the Ural mountains, a description of whose implements I have given, they would not seem to have been capable of the delicate work exhibited in the cups, the lunulæ, the Irish diadem, the Mold corselet, the Lincolnshire armlet, and other articles; and we must therefore suppose these to belong to a later period, and to have been introduced by a second Scythic wave, or by another people. Seeing the strong resemblance between these articles and those to be found in the museum of Corneto-Tarquinia, and remembering how famous the Etruscans were for their bronzes and gold work, I prefer to think that these articles were introduced by the Etruscans, either directly or indirectly; that they had obtained the pattern-at least of the cups -through Greece, the latter country having received it perhaps from Persia, and originally from Scythia.

With the Cornish cup were deposited articles of ivory, glass beads, pottery of a reddish-brown colour, and a bronze spear-head, with other fragments of metal, all consistent with that Etruscan ownership or origin which I have ventured to assign to it. "The Etruscans, masters of the sea," says Dr. Birch, "imported enamelled ware from Egypt, glass from Phoenicia, shells from the Red Sea, and tin from the coasts of Spain or Britain." Whether this trade was carried on wholly by sea, or whether a trade-route existed at this remote period across Europe, cannot be very easily decided, but it seems to me that it would not be impossible to trace these early merchants by their wares, through the Swiss lke villages and Gaul to our own shores, and across Cornwall and Wales to Ireland, in which island there would seem to have been a more permanent settlement made. Nevertheless, it is easy to see that a coasting voyage round Spain, destined for Britain, might be driven more than once by storm or contrary winds to Ireland, which, once discovered, and found to possess metals of various kinds, would certainly be revisited, and probably made a depôt for commerce, or a settlement for mining purposes.

Indications that one at least of the races thus visiting Ireland was Etruscan may, if I mistake not, be found, not only in the articles of bronze and gold I have described, but also in traditions and in the pages of history.

Cæsar's assertion that the gods of the Gauls and Britons were the same as those of Rome; that the Druids made use of Greek characters, although apparently ignorant of the Greek language;1 the great influence possessed by women, especially in Ireland, where I believe the genealogies were traced in the female line as in Etruria; the extraordinary powers of divination ascribed to the Druids and to the Tuatha de Dannans, seem to stamp them as of Etruscan race, or at least as having derived their traditions, as well as their gold and bronze implements, and perhaps their mode of sepulture, from Etruria. The great tumuli of New 1 Cæsar, Book VI. p. 17 ; V. p. 48; I. p. 25.

Grange, Dowth, &c., were, unfortunately, rifled by the Danes, but the markings upon the stones might fairly be looked upon as Etruscan, and there is every reason to suppose that the arrangement of the tombs, and the treasures they contained, were such as might still be found in those great tumuli, which evidently preceded the underground painted tombs in the Necropolis of old Tarquinii, if only some competent archæologist would devote to them the attention which has been given to our own great tumuli; and if that diligent and scientific research could be extended to the desolate site of the city of Tarquinii, I feel assured that many discoveries of infinite value to archæology and anthropology would reward the explorers.

I have dwelt in this chapter chiefly on the evidences of pre-historic commerce between Mediterranean peoples and our own islands, as afforded by gold and bronze articles, but the subject might be indefinitely enlarged, and I trust some one fully conversant with the subject will take the matter up, and assign to each race its proper share in spreading civilization by means of commerce from East to West. I have treated more particularly of the Etruscans, because there seems a tendency to ignore all pre-historic commerce except as carried on through the Phoenicians, whereas it appears to me that Etruscan influences are far more evident than Phoenician, for I do not think that any of the articles I have mentioned as discovered alike in Ireland and in the Necropolis of old Tarquinii have been found among undoubted Phoenician remains, although there are doubtless others which may be referred to that source, and some which may also be traced to Greece and to Egypt. I feel convinced that a careful study of pre-historic commerce, as revealed by relics such as those I have indicated, when undertaken by competent workers, will eventually throw a flood of light upon the anthropology and archæology of Great Britain and Ireland.

In pointing out the connection existing in the Bronze age between Etruria and Ireland I am not bringing forward a new theory; General Vallancy many years

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