account of Wineta:

"Urbem frequentabant Græci aut potius Russi multarumque aliarum
nationum mercatores, quorum affluxus frequens civibus ingentes divitias
et facultates conciliavit: _adeo ut portæ civitatis ex ære paratæ_, et
argentum tam vulgare ibi esset ut ad communium et vilium rerum usum
adhibetur."

To go, however, completely into the history of these gates would require a
volume. It would be necessary to commence with the great veneration for
gates in general throughout the north: whether the name of their great god
Thor (a gateway) is cause or consequence would have to be considered, and
his coincidence, in this respect, with Janus and Janua, the eldest deity of
the Italians, which I have more largely discussed in an _Essay on a British
Coin with the Head of Janus_, in the 21st No. of the Journal of the British
Archæological Association. Next, the question would arise, whether these
gates have not been migratory, like those of Somnauth, which Mahmoud took
to Gazni from a similar principle of deeply-rooted ancient
veneration,--relics of sanctity rather than trophies of victory, and which
Lord Ellenborough was so unjustly ridiculed for endeavouring to restore.
Thirdly, therefore, also whether the famous gates of the cathedral of
Novogorod may not be identical with those which have successively adorned
Vineta's and Wisby's portals; and whether those which are still the
ornament of the west door of the cathedral of Hildesheim, (which, according
to the inscription which crosses their twenty scriptural bas-reliefs, were
cast by Bereward, the thirteenth bishop, in 1015), may not be an existing
and beautiful example; as is the bronze column, with the bas-reliefs of
passages of the New Testament winding round it, and placed in the same
cathedral close. It would not be too much to surmise, that even the
beautiful gate of the Florence baptistery are from the same atelier, as an