ABSTRACT
W e h a v e already seen in the previous chapter that, by the middle of the fourth century B.C., attempts were being made by British metalworkers and potters to achieve a freer, curvilinear style of ornament, uninhibited by the rigid geometric symmetry of the early La Tene phase. The elementary spirals of the Box brooch, the writhing snake design of the Minster Ditch scabbard, and even the rudimentary and mechanical scrolls of the Blew burton bowl attest an increasing interest in the sinuous, flowing style which came to charac terise mature Celtic art in Britain and on the Continent.
