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SPINDLE-WHORLS, DISCS, SLICKSTONES, ETC.
[CHAP. XX.

the case of the shale cups, however, the evidence seems in favour of their having been articles of home manufacture, and we shall shortly see to what an extent jet was used here in early times for ornamental purposes.

So far as amber is concerned, it is to be remembered that after storms it occurs in considerable quantities along the eastern coast of England, and on the southern coast at all events to Deal. An important work on the amber ornaments of the Stone Period has been published by Dr. Richard Klebs[1]

Vessels without handles were also occasionally formed of stone. Six or seven of these, of various sizes and forms, were discovered in a "kist-vaen" in the Island of Unst,[2] and are now for the most part in the British Museum. Four of them are of a rude quadrangular form, with flat bottoms, and from 31/2 to 7 inches in height. The other three are oval. They are formed of schistose rock, and some of them still bear traces of the action of fire. Sir Wollaston Franks, with reference to these vessels, has stated that stone-vessels of a rude type are still in use in some remote parts of Norway. One is engraved, as ancient, by Nilsson.[3]

Fig. 368.—Ty Mawr. 2/3

Several were found in the ancient dwelling at Skara, Orkney,[4] one of which is hexagonal.

A small stone cup, found by the late Hon. W. O. Stanley in an ancient circular habitation at Ty Mawr, Holyhead, is, through his kindness, shown in Fig. 368.[5] A more oval cup, somewhat broken, was also found.

An oval stone cup (41/2 inches long), apparently made out of half of a rounded boulder from the beach, was found in a barrow at Penmaenmawr.[6]

A circular cup or mortar, barely 4 inches in diameter, from Anglesea, is engraved in the Archæological Journal.[7]

Some small cup-shaped vessels of chalk, probably used as lamps,
  1. "Der Bemstein-schmuck der Steinzeit," Königsberg in Pr., 1882.
  2. Mem. Anthrop. Soc. Lond., vol. i. p. 296, pl. i. Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. iii. p. 51.
  3. "stone Age," pl. x. 210.
  4. Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. viii. p. 213.
  5. Arch. Journ., vol. xxvii. p. 160, pl. ii. 2.
  6. Arch. Camb., 5th S., vol. viii. p. 56.
  7. Vol. xxvi. p. 288.