Beginnings英国起源(9)

And with tribal manufacture came trade.

The warriors, druid priests and artists of Iron Age Britain shipped their wares all over Europe.

Trading with the expanding Roman Empire.

In return, with no home-grown grapes or olives.

Mediterranean wine and oil arrived in large earthenware jars.

So Iron Age Britain was definitely not the back of beyond.

Its tribes may all have led lives separated from each other by custom and language.

And they may have had no great capital city, but taken together they added up to something in the world, the bustling of countless productive, energetic beehives

What the bees made was not honey, but gold.

So the Romans would have known all about this strange but alluring world of fat cattle and busy forgers.

Evidence of its refinement would certainly have found its way to Rome.

But along with the glittering metal ware came stories of alarming cults.

Which might have prompted the usual Roman dinner time discussions.

But all very interesting, I dare say, but would we really want to call them a civilisation?

Supposing they would have seen an ancient sculpture, like this haunting stone face with its archaic secretive smile。

The eyes closed as if in some mysterious devotional trance.

The nose flattened, the che，eks broad.

The whole thing so spellbindingly reminiscent of things the Romans must have seen in Etruria or around the Greek islands.,

Would they then have said, "Yes, this is a work of art"?