The archaeology and prehistoric annals of Scotland . ve Britons, norindeed among the Scandinavian warriors of the Bronze Period. Onlyone imperfect fragment of a bronze helmet exists in the ample collec-tions of the Christiansborg Palace at Copenhagen. Diodorus refers tothe brazen helmet of the Gauls, but both Herodian and Xiphilinespeak of the Britons as destitute of this defensive head-piece. Theirmatted locks, which they decorated with the large and massive hair-pins of gold, silver, or bronze, so frequently found with other relics,sufficed them alike for protection and ornament. This custom
The archaeology and prehistoric annals of Scotland . ve Britons, norindeed among the Scandinavian warriors of the Bronze Period. Onlyone imperfect fragment of a bronze helmet exists in the ample collec-tions of the Christiansborg Palace at Copenhagen. Diodorus refers tothe brazen helmet of the Gauls, but both Herodian and Xiphilinespeak of the Britons as destitute of this defensive head-piece. Theirmatted locks, which they decorated with the large and massive hair-pins of gold, silver, or bronze, so frequently found with other relics,sufficed them alike for protection and ornament. This custom wasprobably common to all the northern races. But the indispensabledefensive amiour of the old British warrior was his shield, frequentlymade entirely of bronze or of wood covered with metal, and sometimesadorned with plates of silver and even gold. The ancient bronze shield is of common occurrence both in Britainand Ireland, and forms one of the most ingenious specimens of pri-mitive metallurgic art. In 1780 a singular group of five or six bronze. bucklers was discovered in a peat moss, six or seven feet below thesurface, on the farm of Luggtonrigge, near Giffin Castle, shields were regularly disposed in a circle, and one of them, whichpassed into the possession of Dr. Ferris, was subsequently presented 1 Itincr. Septent. Appendix, p. 172. Twohelmets are said to be preserved by LordRollo at Duncruib House. Pertlishire. -wliich ?were dug up in the ueighbourhood alongwith various bronze relics. Vide NewStatistical Account, vol. x. p. 717. 268 THE AKCHAIC Oil BRONZE PERIOD. by him to the Society of Antiquaries of London. It has a semi-globular umbo, surrounded by twenty-nine concentric rows of smallstuds, with intervening ribs, and measures 26f inches in all the primitive British bucklers, it seen that it wasdesigned to be held in the hand, the raised umbo in the centrebeing hollow to receive and jirotect the hand where it grasped thecross bar
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