Note 19: — V.—RELIGION AND SUPERSTITION. (Wall-Cases 98-106.)

Bronze Implements.—A series of early Italic bronze implements (No. 92), may have been used in sacrifice. Those with the curved claws were probably used for taking boiled meats out of a caldron. They remind us of the five-pronged sacrificial forks mentioned in Homer, and of the custom of the Jewish priests' servants as described in the Book of Samuel: "The priest's servant came, while the flesh was in seething, with a fleshhook of three teeth in his hand; and he struck it into the pan, or kettle, or caldron, or pot; all that the fleshhook brought up the priest took therewith."19 On the right are three bronze gridirons. These, like the fleshhooks, originally had wooden handles inserted into their sockets. The meat was spitted upon hooks, which only remain in one instance.