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At the time of the opening of the latter, there was a tremendous thunder-storm, of which Mr. Bowles, the poet, who was on the spot, availed himself in a spirited copy of verses, sent next morning to our Author. The peculiarity and excess of ancient zeal manifested in these very extraordinary instances, to secure a profound and eternal quiet to a dead friend, was met and rivalled by a proportionate excess of excitement in the curiosity of the modern detector; for doubtless in these deepest explorations, the inquisitive feeling became every moment more intense, in proportion to the greater remoteness and mystery of the retirement of the concealed object from the light of day.

At the depth of eleven feet, after the very laborious removal of an immense quantity of flints, we discovered a skeleton of large proportions, lying north-east by south-west, on its left side, with both legs gathered up, according to the most ancient and primitive usage. Near its side was deposited a most beautiful brazen dagger, that had been gilt, and protected by a wooden scabbard, some part of which was still seen adhering to it; also a large and a small ornament of jet, perforated with two holes for suspension. Near the thigh-bone was another ornament of jet, resembling a pully, four very perfect arrow heads of flint, as well as some pieces of flint chipped and prepared for similar weapons, and a small brass pin. A fine urn, probably the Drinking Cup, lay broken at the feet of this British hero.' p. 239.

The quality of the weapons, in point of material, leaves no doubt of this interment being anterior to the Roman invasion; but the workmanship of the dagger, by the description, would seem to indicate something superior in art to any probable attainments of the very earliest period. Mr. Bowles, indeed, in the poem, makes this dagger to be the gift of Kings of distant ocean'.

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Through a very large proportion of the barrows examined and enumerated, each contained several interments: not only the relics of several bodies, for those were often found obviously constituting one interment, but distinct deposites made at different periods of time, Skeletous would often be disclosed at a very slight depth below the surface of the tumulus; further down, perhaps a deposite of burnt bones, with an urn or without; another perhaps on the floor; and still the cist with the most ancient interment, would remain for a further search. Cunnington and our Author were never satisfied unless they could detect the primary interment, and they learned to distinguish almost infallibly all the others from that. The different deposites were often palpably referred to different ages, by the systematic diversity of the weapons or ornaments.

Mr.

It is one of the unaccountable facts established by Sir Richard's experience, that the relative magnitudes of the tumuli

supply no rule of probability as to the importance of the deposites which they may respectively contain,-judging of that importance by the kind and quantity of the articles found with the bones. The opening of one very fine barrow of the height of nearly fourteen feet from the floor, discovered at five feet below that floor the primary interment, which was the skeleton of a child, apparently not more than two or three years old, accompanied with only a drinking cup. On which Sir Richard remarks, that, from its size and beautiful form, Dr. Stukely would have styled this a King Barrow; but that such a result of the investigation may shew how little regard we ought to pay to system; especially when in the very same group a mean and insignificant barrow,' so low as to admit the plough to pass over it, produced a variety of ornaments of gold and amber, of a very unusual size, accompanying a skeleton which he deems to have been that of some very distinguished 'British female'. Among the burned bones in another tumulus,

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were found upwards of forty amber beads of various forms and sizes, some of jet, others of the vitrified sort called pully beads, and two of horn. Besides these articles, was a very curious ornament of amber, consisting of six separate pieces, which, when, strung together, formed a decorative part of the Briton's dress. There were also the fragments of a small ornamented cup, and a little brass pin. From the nature and size of the articles found in this barrow, we may rationally conclude it contained the relics of some distinguished female.' p. 46.

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Sets of beads which appeared to have been strung for necklaces, were repeatedly found; with one interment there were no less than forty-eight beads, sixteen of which were of green and blue opaque glass, of a long shape, and notched 'between, so as to resemble a string of beads; five were of canal coal or jet; and the remaining twenty-seven were of 'red amber; the whole forming a most beautiful necklace, and 'such as a British female would not in these modern days of good taste and elegance disdain top wear.' One interment combined weapons of war with such trinkets as Sir Richard judges to be indicative of a female; and he therefore confers on this supposed British fair, the denomination of amazon.

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So much of the apparatus of war was found with the human relics in some of the barrows, as to indicate unequivocally the resting place of some distinguished inflicter of death, himself possibly the victim of the illustrious trade. The mighty hunter' was conspicuous by the memorials found in others, of the investigation of one of which we transcribe the account.

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The first object that attracted our attention, was the skeleton of a small dog, deposited in the soil three feet from the surface;

at the depth of eight feet ten inches, we came to the bottom of the barrow, and discovered the following very perfect interment collected on a level floor. The body of the deceased had been burned, and the bones and ashes had been piled up in a small heap, which was surrounded by a circular wreath of horns of the red deer, within which, and amidst the ashes, were five beautiful arrow heads, cut out of flint, and a small red pebble. Thus we most clearly see the profession of the Briton here interred. In the flint arrow heads we recognise his fatal implements of destruction; in the stags' horns we see the victims of his skill as a hunter; and the bones of the dog deposited in the same grave, and above those of his master, commemorate his faithful attendant in the chace, and perhaps his unfortunate victim in death.'

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In digging another, the workmen threw out the bones of several dogs, and some of deer, and on the floor found a human skeleton, which had been originally interred from ' north to south; but many of the bones had been displaced, probably owing to a recent' (a later) interment of burned bones, which had been deposited near the feet of this 'skeleton.' One interesting tumulus, which Sir Richard is inclined to denominate a family sepulchre, contained in one cist three distinct interments, which a careful and a skilful observation of the appearances of the chalk and mould ascertained to have been at three several times. On the floor of the cist was the primary deposite, two skeletons lying by the side of each other, with their heads to the north, and both extremely well preserved. One of them appeared, from the size of the bones, to have been a tall stout man; all their teeth were firm, and remarkably even. At their head was a drinking cup. Over these were five skeletons lying nearly side by side, two of them appearing to have been young persons. Above these was another skeleton, and in the lap of this had been placed, at a subsequent period, a rude urn, in an inverted position, and containing burned bones.

On observing here and there a notice, like that above, that some one of the disinterred skeletons was that of a tall and stout man, or that, as in another instance, (page 203) a thigh bone measured twenty inches, we have been tempted to wish some accurate physiologist could have attended these revocations of the ancient dead, in order to judge from the bones, of the dimensions of the living beings, as compared with the human animal of modern time. Our Author does not express any surmise of their having had any advantage generally over us in this respect.

We do not recollect any instances of anomalous or monstrous structure, except the following:

• On reaching the floor of the barrow we discovered four skeletons strangely huddled together. The bones were in a high state of pre

servation, and one of the persons seemed to have had no forehead, the sockets of his eyes appearing to have been on the top of his head, and the final termination of the vertebra turned up so much that we almost fancied we had found the remains of one of Lord Monboddo's animals."

The works of art most commonly found in the tumuli, have already been incidentally mentioned. A large proportion of them contain the funeral urns, of baked clay, some of them of rude shape, and unornamented; but many of them ornamented, and some of them of a shape evincing some slight conception of elegance. The embellishments were effected while the clay remained soft, with a sharp instrument, with which were cut and dotted round the urn girdles of spots, and Vandyke or other patterns, worked with considerable regularity, and some of them requiring so many applications of the tool as to challenge our admiration of the quickness of hand which could finish them before the clay became dry. The sizes are extremely various; the largest ever found by our Author is 22 inches high, and 15 inches diameter at the top; it has rude embossings round the brim, and in lines from the top to the bottom.

، Though we are informed, says Sir R. Hoare, “ by Strabo, that pottery was one of the articles of barter between the Britons and the Phoenicians, I cannot persuade myself that any of the vases found in our Wiltshire tumuli could have been transported thither from so civilized a region. They are composed of very coarse materials, and so imperfectly baked, that I have seen one of them taken entire out of a barrow, and shiver into a thousand pieces by the mere action of the atmosphere upon it. They have been imperfectly baked, either in the sun, or the fire of the funeral pile.-Such, without exception, have been the urns found in our barrows; all claiming a rude and remote British origin. After the conquest of our island by the Romans, a new species of pottery was introduced among the Britons, beautifully moulded, finely glazed, and richly ornamented, numerous fragments of which are to be found in the villages of the Romanized Britons, but not the smallest morsel in any of the tumuli we have opened. The extreme rudeness of our sepulchral urns, as well as the articles deposited within our barrows, evidently prove their very high antiquity, and mark them of an era prior to the Roman invasion." p. 27.

The small vessels properly called by our Author drinking cups, were found in considerable number, and with much variety of form and decoration; in both of which respects several of them are really beautiful. Many of them are quite diminutive; and very few are of a capacity at all adapted to the high style of conviviality. They are but very rarely, we think, of equal dimensions with that favourite kind of drinking cups, which awaited the Scandinavian heroes after death, in the Hall of Odin. It has been seen by some of our quotations, that

these vessels were placed indifferently near the head or the feet of the person entombed. One solitary instance has occurred of a lid to one of these vessels. The art of turning was unknown to the fabricators of this earthenware; they are all moulded by the hand, and of course have very seldom a perfect and symmetrical regularity of shape. There is another class of vessels, of shallower and flatter form, with perforations; these our Author has denominated incense-cups, as deeming it probable from these perforations, and from the extreme smoky blackness observed on some of them, that they might have been suspended with some substance which was to melt into the funeral fire.

A very large proportion of these vessels were found broken, from the superincumbent weight, and some of those that remained entire, could not, by any care, be removed whole from their ancient position.

The weapons were arrow heads, in a few instances of bone, generally of flint; hatchets of stone (if these were weapons); and daggers and spear heads, a few of flint, generally of brass. Some of these last are described and delineated as shaped and marked with considerable elegance. The stone hatchets are often very neatly, indeed elegantly cut; and not less so the celts, an implement which may be described as a long slender hatchet with the blunt end inserted into a short straight handle, in the manner of a chisel, instead of the usual form of being fixed on a long handle by a perforation in the middle. Several times the relics of a shield were detected, besides the instances mentioned in the following interesting descriptions.

This barrow contained a skeleton interred from south-west to north-east, at the depth of three feet nine inches under the surface. The position in which we found this skeleton, would naturally lead us to suppose it to be the remains of some warrior slain in battle. The head was reclined on the breast, one of the arms thrown backwards, and some of the fingers were scattered about, yet there were no indications to lead us to suppose it had ever been disturbed. We found a part of the shield of the deceased lying by its side; it had been made of fir, and strengthened by slips of brass rivetted through, and though not thicker than a quarter of an inch, was quite firm, and had splinters remaining at the end where it was broken off. By the side of the skeleton lay a considerable quantity of corroded iron, which probably was once the sword or spear of the warrior; and with it some small bits of cloth, so well preserved, that we can distinguish clearly the size of the spinning, and that it is what we now term a kersey cloth. Every circumstance attending the finding this skeleton, induces us to think that this interment was subsequent to the original construction of the barrow; especially as we afterwards, near the bottom of it, discovered a cist of little depth, con taining the burnt bones of the primary deposit.' p. 79.

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