Some few trinkets of gold have been found in the lacustrine settlements of the bronze epoch; but this sort of "find" is very rare. They are in the form of earrings, and may be seen in the collection of Colonel Schwab.
Industrial Skill and Agriculture during the Bronze Epoch--The Invention of Glass--Invention of Weaving.
The manufacture of pottery, which appears to have remained stationary during the Stone Age, assumed a considerable development during the bronze epoch. The clay intended for making pottery was duly puddled, and the objects when moulded were baked in properly formed furnaces. At this date also commences the art of surfacing articles of earthenware.
The specimens of pottery which have been found in the settlements of man of this period are both numerous and interesting; entire vessels have indeed been discovered. We notice indications of very marked progress beyond the objects of this kind manufactured in the preceding age. They are still fashioned by the hand and without the aid of the wheel; but the shapes are both more varied in their character and more elegant. In addition to this, although in the larger kind of vessels the clay used is still rough in its nature and full of hard lumps of quartz like the material employed in the Stone Age, that of the smaller vessels is much finer, and frequently covered with a black lead coating.
Most of these vessels are characterised by a conical base, a shape which we had before occasion to point out in the stag's-horn vessels of the Stone Age. If, therefore, it was requisite to place them upright, the lower ends of them had to be stuck into the earth, or to be placed in holders hollowed out to receive them.
Some of these supports, or holders, have been discovered. They are called _torches_, or _torchères_, by French archæologists.
Figs. 198 and 199 give a representation of a bronze vessel from the lacustrine habitations of Switzerland with its support or _torchère_.
[Illustration: Fig. 198.--Earthenware Vessel with Conical Bottom, from the Lacustrine Habitations of Switzerland.]
[Illustration: Fig. 199.--Earthen Vessel placed on its support.]
In a general way, the vessels made with conical bases have no handles; but others, on the contrary, are provided with them (fig. 200). They are nearly always ornamented with some sort of design, either mere lines parallel to the rim, triangles, chevrons, or rows of points round the handle or the neck. Even the very roughest specimens are not altogether devoid of ornamentation, and a stripe may often be observed round the neck, on which the fingers of the potter have left their traces.