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ORNAMENTED BALLS PRINCIPALLY FROM SCOTLAND.
421

latter is in the Montrose Museum.[1] One of greenstone, 21/2 inches in diameter, found at Ballater,[2] Aberdeenshire, has six plain circular discs, with the interspaces partially cut into small knobs or studs, the ornaments being possibly in course of formation. Stone balls,[3] about 21/2 and 3 inches in diameter, covered over the surface with small rounded projections, like enormous petrified mulberries, have been found in the Isle of Skye, in Orkney, and at Garvoch Hill, Kincardineshire. I presume the latter to be a different specimen from that with three faces, previously described. Others are in the Perth Museum.[4] A series of such balls, some highly ornamented, has been described by Dr. John Alexander Smith.[5] One formed of hornblende schist, with six strongly projecting circular faces, was found near Ballymena,[6] co. Antrim, in 1850, and is now in the British Museum.

Fig. 352.—Towie.

Probably the most remarkable of all these balls is that shown in Fig. 352, from a cut kindly lent me by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. It was found at Towie,[7] Aberdeenshire, and is about 21/2 inches in diameter, with four rounded projections, three of which are ornamented with different incised patterns, while the fourth is smooth and undecorated. From the character of the patterns, this object would seem to belong to the Bronze Period rather than to that of Stone, if not, indeed, to still later times. In connection with the pattern upon it, attention may, however, be called to the remarkable carved cylinders of chalk found by Canon Greenwell in a barrow on Folkton Wold,[8] Yorkshire, and now in the British Museum, which are certainly not of later date than the Bronze Age. The ornament on a clay vessel found in Devonshire[9] may be compared with that of the sides of the cylinders.

  1. ↑ Report Montrose Nat. Hist. and Ant. Soc., 1868.
  2. ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. v. p. 340.
  3. ↑ Ib., vol. iv. pp. 186, 292; vii. p. 209.
  4. ↑ Wilson, "Preh. Ann. Scot.," vol. i. p. 195.
  5. ↑ P. S. A. S., vol. xi. pp. 29, 313.
  6. ↑ Arch. Journ., vol. xi. p. 58.
  7. ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. iii. p. 439. Wilson, "Preh. Ann. of Scot.," vol. i. pl. iii. Photographs of three of the faces are given in the Reliquary and Illust. Archæol., vol. iii. (1897) p. 103, q.v.
  8. ↑ Arch., vol. lii. p. 14, pl. i. and ii.
  9. ↑ Trans. Dev. Assoc., vol. xii. p. 124.
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