ched triangles,
and the neckings of what may be called the handle, with chevron and
herring-bone pattern, while along the back of the handle is an
ornament of lozenges. In the second type these objects assume the
shape of a bracelet; and the expanded ends are sometimes cup-shaped
and sometimes plain. From the extreme similarity between the shape of
these, whether in gold or bronze, to the so-called African manillas,
it has been conjectured the Irish examples, like the African, may have
been used as a medium of exchange; and on the whole it seems probable
that such was the case, the dividing line between what were used for
ornaments and what may have been used for exchange not being at all
easily defined (figs. 63 and 64).

[Illustration: PLATE V. Gold Fibulae. _p. 68._]

[Illustration: Fig. 64.--Sixteenth-century bronze casting from Benin,
showing natives holding manillas (after Read and Dalton,
_Antiquities of the City of Benin_).]

RING-MONEY

The question of a medium of exchange leads us to mention the very
small gold penannular rings, the largest being about an inch in
diameter, frequently found in Ireland, which are known as
'ring-money.' There are fifty-six in the National Collection; and a
find made near Belfast of a socketed bronze celt in association with
some of these objects shows they were in use during the late Bronze
Age.[23] Attention has been called to the similarity of these Irish
gold rings to the penannular copper rings plated with gold often found
in early Japanese burials.[24]

[23] Archaeologia, lxi, p. 153.

[24] See Munro, "Pre-historic Japan," p. 435, fig. 276.

Many attempts have been made to equate the weights of a series of
these rings with some known standard; and in his valuable work "The
Origin of Currency and Weight Standards," Professor Ridgeway devotes
several pages of his Appendix C to a discussion of the subject, and
gives a table of the weights arrived at by grouping the rings in
multiples of 18.

While there can be no reasonable doubt that these objects were used as
a medium of exchange, we are not inclined, in the absence of literary
evidence, to go any further into the question of what standard they
may represent. Some of these rings are evidently forgeries of ancient
times, as they are composed of bronze rings covered with a thin plate
of gold. The rings as a rule are plain; but some are ornamented with
small strips of darker metal