similar to the Danish ones, have frequently been found in all the countries which were formerly, and are still, inhabited by Celtic tribes. It has been said too, that the bronze weapons, implements, and ornaments were of Celtic origin only, because the Teutonic tribes had no miners, and did not understand how to prepare the bronze metal, or how to work it afterwards.
It is certainly very curious that the many weapons, implements, and ornaments of bronze, which have been discovered in Greece, Italy, Germany, France, England, and Scandinavia, have in many respects considerable resemblance to each other. The swords are all short, two-edged, and with small handles, which have been fixed with nails to the blade; the Celts have about the same form, and have been fixed nearly in the same manner into the handle. The forms of the hatchets, knives, arm and neck rings, &c., are also very much alike. They have all been cast in moulds, and the metal is of the same composition, nine-tenths copper and one-tenth tin. From this there would be farther reason to suppose that they all originated with one people.
But a careful examination and comparison of the antiquities themselves from these various countries will nevertheless shew that in different countries the antiquities of bronze are also somewhat different. First the patterns or ornaments are not at all the same in all countries. In the North, in Denmark, and Mecklenburg, the spiral ornaments are, as already shewn, the most prevailing; but farther south, and west, ring ornaments and lines, which sometimes form triangular figures, are alone to be seen. Of the forms too the details are different. In Denmark, the swords of bronze have more often peculiar bronze handles, richly ornamented, than in England; in Italy again the forms of the swords are a little different both from the English, and the Danish ones. The Celts in Italy, Switzerland, and Greece, are much flatter, and more ornamented, than the Celts in the north of Europe. The lance-heads in the British islands are distinctly different from the Danish, which unlike the
