The reader who has been taught to regard his British forefathers as savages would not expect to find that they used mirrors; but although some of those whose pre-Roman age is certain are quite plain, a beautiful specimen which was found at Trelan Bahow in Cornwall, where to the last Roman influence was hardly felt, is probably representative of many which were made in the century before the Roman conquest, even though its own date may be later than the time of Claudius. Unlike the primitive mirrors, which were of iron mounted with bronze, it is made entirely of the brighter metal, and ornamented on the back with three circles, which enclose patterns of engraved scroll-work, filled with cross-hatching.[994]
The _fibula_ or brooch--the prototype of the modern safety-pin--which had come into use on the Continent in the earliest period of the Hallstatt culture, was not known in our island before the Iron Age. Brooches of the successive La Tène types, in all of which the pin was straight and the body curved like a bow, have been found in considerable numbers; one of the earliest, from Water Eaton in Oxfordshire, being engraved with scrolls and the familiar ring-and-dot pattern, while another, from Avebury, was set with coral.[995] Some brooches discovered in the stronghold of Hod Hill, near Blandford, had been modelled upon an Italian pattern of much earlier date.[996] Pins, however, were still used for fastening the dress. Plain ones, which may be as old as the fourth century before Christ, have been found at Hagbourne Hill in Berkshire, and on the site of a pile-dwelling at Hammersmith, and others, which are hardly distinguishable in shape from a modern scarf-pin and belong to the period immediately preceding the coming of the Romans, in various parts of Scotland;[997] but one which lay among the relics in a grave near Driffield was far more elaborately designed, its head being a miniature chariot-wheel with four spokes, curiously inlaid with shell.[998]
Of our Late Celtic ornaments many are undatable; and while the torques and richly decorated collars which are familiar to all antiquarians are common in early Gaulish graves, those of this country which are most characteristic of Late Celtic art appear to belong to the Roman period:[999] but bronze bracelets set with paste were worn even in Yorkshire; and a penannular bracelet with small tooth-like projections, which closely resembles far earlier specimens from Hallstatt, belongs to the same district.[1000] Of less costly trinkets lathe-turned bangles of Kimmeridge shale,[1001] glass armlets,[1002] and glass beads[1003] can hardly perhaps be classified as works of art; but it is noteworthy that the beads, yellow, green, and blue, with their zigzag patterns and wavy white lines, which have been found at Glastonbury and in Yorkshire barrows, are utterly different from those of the Bronze Age, and belong mainly to a late period of the La Tène culture, though some had analogues in the cemetery of Hallstatt. As Glastonbury has also yielded pieces of glass slag and of crucibles, the beads were probably manufactured on the spot.[1004] For some reason which has not been explained gold ornaments were apparently far rarer both in this country and in Gaul than in the preceding period.[1005]