Spade Work
Archaeology in England and Wales, 1914-1931. By T. W. Kendrick and C. F. C. llawkes. (Methuen. 18s.) The Archaeology of Cornwall and Scilly. By H. O'Neill Hencken. (Methuen. 10s. 6d.) The Great Wall of Hadrian in Roman Times. By Paul Brown. (Heath Cranton. 6s.) The Bible, the Scholar and the Spade. By Dr. C. H. Irwin. (Religious Tract Society. 7s. 6d.) SCIENTIFIC digging has revealed the ancient East and is now throwing light on the early history of our own country. Everyone is aware that many excavators have been and are at work in England and Wales, but only the few experts are able to keep track of the results and reduce them to some sort of order. It is gratifying, then, to find that two well-known members of the British Museum staff, Mr. Kendrick and Mr. Hawkes, after preparing a report on recent English work for the German Archaeological Institute, have amplified it for the English public. Here, in a compact and scholarly form, is a survey of the present state of our knowledge of early Britain from the Old Stone Age to Anglo- Saxon times, with exaa references and an abundance of illustrations. To review such a volume is impossible within
our limited space, but a few points may be noted. On the famous controversy about eoliths, the flints supposedly worked by man before the Ice Age, Mr. Kendrick is unex- pectedly favourable to the claim now that he has personally examined the specimens at Bloomsbury. The palaeolithic flints found by Mr. Reid Moir have sympathetic treatment. On Stonehenge and the recently discovered " Woodhenge " near by, Mr. Kendrick is non-committal. Their secrets remain to be discovered : their dates cannot be fixed. The old astronomical theories are abandoned. When we come to the Bronze Age, the accumulation of details from many sites makes for definite views about Continental immigra- tions, spreading to Ireland towards the close of the period, somewhere about 800 B.C. Two centuries later, perhaps, new Celtic invaders brought in the Iron Age. Mr. Hawkes gives an extremely interesting account of the Belgic immigra- tions, beginning about 75 B.C. These people from Gaul, he thinks, were the chief opponents of the Romans, while the natives sided with the newcomers. Pre-Roman Colchester was the Belgic capital : Caractacus was the son of the Belgic king and not an early British hero. Mr. Hawkes' full and lucid account of Roman Britain includes the latest discoveries, and Mr. Kendrick ends the book with an illuminating chapter on the Anglo-Saxon period, which calls for much more attention than it has yet received.
This vast field of English archaeology is being intensively studied in the fine series of "County Archaeologies," edited by Mr. Kendrick. Mr. Hencken's new volume on Cornwall and Scilly is ably written and full of fresh or little-known material, especially about the Scilly megaliths and the Cornish tin mining. What race was it that in the remote past built many chambered barrows of great stones in the tiny islets of Scilly ? Why did they cross a stormy sea to bury their dead in these places, rather than on the mainland, where such barrows are relatively infrequent ? Mr. Hencken quotes the old Greek and Celtic legends and suggests that these pre-Celtic barrows gave rise to a Celtic belief in a land of the dead across the sea. He traces early connexions between Cornwall and Ireland as well as between Cornwall and Western France, to which tin was exported in the Bronze Age. His account of the early tin trade is interesting. He describes an ancient track leading from Hayle to Marazion, by which Irish merchants probably reached the depot of tin on St. Michael's Mount. The story of Tristan and Iseult, as he says, opens with a war between the Cornish and the Irish, and a King Mark, one Marcus Cunomorus, can be vaguely traced as reigning near Fowey in the sixth century. Last December a hoard of gold objects was found near St. Ives and proved to be of Irish provenance. But, despite the many Cornish places with which King Arthur's name is connected, Mr. Hencken can find no foundation for his legend in Cornwall. The Artorius who led the Romanized Britons against the Saxon invaders probably fought his battles in Eastern England, though his fame survived in the remote West.
The importance of St. Michael's Mount in later times is well shown in Mr. Taylor's history—a good piece of local research. The Priory was from the eleventh century an appendage of the Benedictine house of Mont St. Michel, thus continuing the early connexion between Western France and Cornwall. The Mount was fortified by an adherent of John in 1193, and played a considerable part in various rebellions right up to the Civil War, when it was held for the King. The value of its harbour and market in the middle ages confirms the belief that the Mount was a natural trading centre in early times. Mr. Taylor quotes from a Tristan poem the story of the hermit Ogrin going to the Mount to buy fine clothes for Iseult when she had resolved to return to King Mark. Pilgrims continued to visit St. Michael's shrine right up to the Reformation.
With these learned volumes we may briefly commend Mr. Paul Brown's intelligent little book, in which the Roman Wall as it once existed is reconstructed in drawings with brief descriptions. Visitors to our greatest Roman monument will find the volume helpful. It is commended by Mr. Brewis and Mr. Birley, well known by their work on the Wall.
Another book designed to popularize the results of archaeo- logical inquiry is that in which Dr. Irwin shows how excava-
tions in the Near and Middle East have thrown light on the Bible. He begins with the Creation, the Garden of Eden and the Deluge, as illustrated by the Babylonian monu- ments, and works through the Scriptures down to the Acts and Revelations. Dr. Irwin has read widely and gives a trustworthy account of many notable discoveries, especially in Palestine. There are numerous illustrations.
EDWARD HAWKE.
Previous page
