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The Clyde Mystery, a Study in Forgeries and Folklore, a non-fiction book by Andrew Lang |
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XXVII - PORTUGUESE AND OTHER STONE PENDANTS |
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_ XXVII - PORTUGUESE AND OTHER STONE PENDANTS M. Cartailhac, the very eminent French archaeologist, found not in Portugal, but in the Cevennes, "plaques of slate, sometimes pierced with a hole for suspension, usually smaller than those of the Casa da Moura, not ornamented, yet certainly analogous with these ." {102a} These are also analogous with "engraved plaques of schist found in prehistoric sites of the Rio Negro," "some resembling, others identical with those shewn at Lisbon by Carlos Ribeiro." But the Rio Negro objects appear doubtful. {102b} Portugal has many such plaques, some adorned with designs, and some plain. {102c} The late Don Estacio da Veiga devotes a chapter to them, as if they were things peculiar to Portugal, in Europe. {103a} When they are decorated the ornament is usually linear; in two cases {103b} lines incised lead to "cups." One plaque is certainly meant to represent the human form. M. Cartailhac holds that all the plaques with a "vandyked" pattern in triangles, without faces, "are, none the less, des representations stylisees de silhouette humaine ." {103c} Illustrations give an idea of them (figs. 14, 15, 16); they are more elaborate than the perforated inscribed plaques of shale or schist from Dumbuck. Two perforated stone plaques from Volosova, figured by Dr. Munro (pp. 78, 79), fall into line with other inscribed plaques from Portugal. Of these Russian objects referred to by Dr. Munro, one is (his fig. 25) a roughly pear-shaped thing in flint, perforated at the thin end; the other is a formless stone plaque, inscribed with a cross, three circles, not concentric, and other now meaningless scratches. It is not perforated. Dr. Munro does not dispute the genuine character of many strange figurines in flint, from Volosova, though the redoubtable M. de Mortillet denounced them as forgeries; they had the misfortune to corroborate other Italian finds against which M. de Mortillet had a grudge. But Dr. Munro thinks that the two plaques of Volosova may have been made for sale by knavish boys. In that case the boys fortuitously coincided, in their fake, with similar plaques, of undoubted antiquity, and, in some prehistoric Egyptian stones, occasionally inscribed with mere wayward scratches. For these reasons I think the Volosova plaques as genuine as any other objects from that site, and corroborative, so far, of similar things from Clyde.
To return to Portugal, M. Cartailhac recognises that the plain plaques of slate from sites in the Cevennes "are certainly analogous" with the plaques from the Casa da Moura, even when these are elaborately ornamented with vandyked and other patterns. I find one published case of a Portuguese plaque with cups and ducts, as at Dumbuck (fig. 16). Another example is in Antiguedades Prehistoricas de Andalucia , p. 109. {104} However, Dr. Munro leaves the Cevennes Andalusian, and Portuguese plaques out of his argument. M. Cartailhac, then, found inscribed and perforated slate tablets "very common in Portugues neolithic sepulchres." The perforated holes showed signs of long wear from attachment to something or somebody. One, from New Jersey, with two holes, exactly as in the Dunbuie example, was much akin in ornament to the Portuguese plaques. One, of slate, was plain, as plain as "a bit of gas coal with a round hole bored through it," recorded by Dr. Munro from Ashgrove Loch crannog. A perforated shale, or slate, or schist or gas coal plaque, as at Ashgrove Loch, ornamented or plain, is certainly like another shale schist or slate plaque, plain or inscribed. We have shown that these occur in France, Portugal, Russia, America, and Scotland, not to speak of Central Australia. My suggestion is that, if the Clyde objects are forged, the forger knew a good deal of archaeology--knew that perforated inscribed plaques of soft mineral occurred in many countries--but he did not slavishly imitate the patterns. By a pleasant coincidence, at the moment of writing, comes to me the Annual Archaeological Report , 1904, of the Canadian Bureau of Education, kindly sent by Mr. David Boyle. He remarks, as to stone pendants found in Canadian soil, "The forms of what we call pendants varied greatly, and were probably made to adapt themselves to the natural shapes of water-worn stones . . . ." This is exactly what Dr. Munro says about the small stone objects from the three Clyde stations. "The pendants, amulets, and idols appear to have been water-worn pieces of shale or slate , before they were perforated, decorated, and polished" (Munro, p. 254). The forger may have been guided by the ancient Canadian pendants; that man knows everything! Mr. Boyle goes on, speaking of the superstitious still surviving instinct of treasuring such stones, "For some unknown reason, many of us exhibit a desire to pick up pebbles so marked, and examples of the kind are often carried as pocket pieces," obviously "for luck." He gives one case of such a stone being worn for fifty years as a "watch pendant." Perforated stones have always had a "fetishness" attached to them, adds Mr. Boyle. He then publishes several figures of such stones. Two of these, with archaic markings like many in Portugal, and one with an undisputed analogue from a Scottish site, are reproduced (figs. 12, 13). It is vain to tell us that the uses of such fetishistic stones are out of harmony with any civilisation. The civilisation of the dwellers in the Clyde sites was not so highly advanced as to reject a superstition which still survives. Nor is there any reason why these people should not have scratched archaic markings on the pebbles as they certainly cut them on stones in a Scottish crannog of the Iron age. Dr. Munro agrees with me that rude scribings on shale or slate are found, of a post-Christian date, at St. Blane's, in Bute. {107} The art, if art it can be called, is totally different, of course, from the archaic types of decoration, but all the things have this in common, that they are rudely incised on shale or slate.
{102a} Les Ages Prehistoriques , p. 100; cf. J. L. de Vasconcellos' Religioes da Lusitania , vol. i. p. 69. Lisboa, 1897. {102b} Antiguedades Monumentaes do Algarve , i. 298. Estacio da Veiga, Lisboa, 1886. {102c} Religioes , i. 69-70. {103a} Antiguedades , vol. ii. 429-481. {103b} Religioes , i. 168. {103c} L'Anthropologie , vol. xiv. p. 542. {104} By Gongora de Martinez. Madrid, 1868. {107} Munro, pp. 232, 234. _ |
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