them again when we come to consider the chronology of the Bronze Age.
Fig. 61.—Bronze celt, one-half natural size. Showing the line of junction of the two halves of the mould in which it was cast.
There is, I believe, only one case in which any bronze weapon or implement bears an inscription; a fact which is the more significant when we remember how often letters are met with on those of iron. Fig. 71 represents this interesting specimen, which is a winged celt, and is in the Museum Kircherianum of the Collegio Romano, at Rome. No explanation of the inscription has yet been given, nor do we even know to what alphabet the letters belong. It was found in the Campagna, but there is unfortunately no record of the circumstances under which it was discovered.
The skill displayed in the manufacture of the objects described in this chapter, as well as the beauty of their form and ornamentation, shows a considerable development of art. The discovery of a bar of tin at Estavayer, and of a mould for casting celts at Morges, has proved that some at least of these objects were made in Switzerland, just as evidence of a similar nature shows that other countries in Europe, as, for instance, Denmark, England, Scotland, and Ireland, had also their own foundries. The similarity of form and ornamentation appears also to indicate some communication between different parts of Europe; but each country presents special types; but as Cornwall, Saxony,
