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when the Nestor of Cambrian archæology, Pennant, was compelled, in his remarks on ancient interments and urn-burials, to admit, "I cannot establish any criterion by which a judgment may be made of the people to whom the different species of urns and tumuli belonged, whether they are British, Roman, Saxon, or Danish." The whole subject, however, as one of our most sagacious antiquaries, Dr. Thurnam, has truly observed, deserves more careful study than it has hitherto obtained. We are still in uncertainty in regard to various details connected with the fictile vessels of the earliest periods, the distinctive character of their fashion, and the uses to which, as some are of opinion, these curious vessels, now known to us only in their application to mortuary purposes, may have been originally destined, in the daily life of ancient occupants of these islands.

Such have been the considerations that have seemed to give particular interest to some discoveries of sepulchral deposits in Anglesey and North Wales, and also in other parts of the Principality, either recently brought to light or hitherto unrecorded.

The general classification of burial-urns of the earlier period, as proposed by Sir Richard Colt Hoare and other writers, although doubtless familiar to many readers of this Journal, may here be briefly noticed. A very useful summary of our knowledge of relics of this description, accompanied by numerous illustrations, has also been given by the late Mr. Bateman in his record of the careful investigations of barrows and urn-burials in Derbyshire and other parts of central England. The

1 Pennant, Tour in Wales, vol. i, p. 383, where a valuable summary of antiquarian knowledge at that period (1778), in regard to the rites. and relics of ancient interments, may be found. Several cinerary urns found in burial-mounds in the parish of Llanarmon, Flintshire, are noticed. They had been placed, inverted, on flat pieces of stone; a second stone being also placed over each urn for its protection in the mound.

2 Crania Britannica, vol. i, ch. v, p. 108.

3 Hoare, Ancient Wilts, vol. i, p. 25.

• Bateman, Ten Years' Diggings, p. 279. See also the valuable dis

vessels exhumed from the so-called Celtic tumuli may be conveniently arranged, as he has pointed out, under the following classes:

1. Cinerary or sepulchral urns, such as have either contained or have been inverted over calcined bones. They vary much in dimensions, material, and ornamentation. Those that are supposed, from their being accompanied by weapons or other objects of flint, to be the most ancient, are formed of clay mixed with small pebbles or broken gravel. They were wrought by hand alone, without the use of a lathe, and the process of firing them was very imperfect. These ancient vessels are frequently described as sun baked, or hardened only by exposure to the air. This, however, seems very improbable. The use of the kiln, even in its simplest construction, may have been unknown until a much later period; the only mode of firing the rude ware having been, possibly, to fill the urn with hot ashes, and to heap the glowing embers around it. The colour of the surface is dark brown; the interior, as appears by any fracture, is black. These urns, holding from three or four pints to as many gallons, measure in height from about ten inches to eighteen inches. The upper part is usually fashioned with an overhanging rim, measuring in many examples more than a third of the entire height of the vessel; and it is decorated by impressions apparently produced by a tool of wood or bone; in other examples by some twisted cord, possibly of skin, sinew, or of vegetable fibre, with scored and other patterns also, in which the herring-bone prevails in various combinations, frequently presenting a reticulated appearance. Some examples of very large dimensions have been brought to light in Wales. In a carnedd near Cronllwyn, on the northern coast of Pembrokeshire, near Fishguard, an urn was found measuring nearly three feet in height. Within it was a small cup. These vessels were exhi

sertation, by Dr. Thurnam, on the historical ethnology of Britain (Crania Brit., ch. v, p. 107), where it is proposed to arrange the vessels found in barrows under three principal types.

bited at the meeting of the Cambrian Association at Tenby in 1851. The occurrence of any object of bronze with urns of this class is rare.

II. "Incense cups" or " thuribles"; a designation commonly adopted, although the purpose of such small vessels is doubtful. They occur with calcined bones, not containing them, and are found deposited within urns of the first class. In dimensions they vary from one inch and a half to about three inches in height. The colour is mostly lighter than that of the large urns; the paste, which is moreover less mixed with pebbles or sand, being more perfectly fired. The vessels of this description have, in many instances, two perforations at the side, and, more rarely, two also at the opposite side, doubtless for suspension. In a few rare instances they are furnished with side-loops or ears. They likewise are fashioned with open work, or with long narrow slits. The ornament is impressed or incised, as on the larger urns. They vary much in form and general fashion, and very anomalous examples have occurred. Sir R. C. Hoare gives a little vessel that seems to belong to this class, resembling a colander (Ancient Wilts, vol. i, p. 209, pl. xxx); also another formed with what may be termed a false bottom,-that is at mid depth within the little vessel, so that it has on either side, obverse or reverse, a similar shallow cavity.2 There is reason to suppose, as the late Mr. Bateman remarks, that they do not accompany the earliest interments. Mr. Birch has suggested that they may have been used as lamps. They have also been compared to salt-cellars. The peculiarity does not appear to have been noticed hitherto, that in many instances such "incense-cups" are ornamented on the under side, as shewn by examples figured hereafter in this memoir. This circumstance seems certainly to suggest that these diminutive vessels were intended to be

1 Arch Camb., vol. ii, N. S., p. 334.

2 Hoare, Ancient Wilts, vol. i, p. 114, pl. xIII.

3 Birch, Ancient Pottery, vol. ii, p. 380. See also Dr. Wilson's Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, 2nd edit., vol. i, p. 423.

hung up above the height of the eye. With one exception, noticed by the late Mr. Bateman (Ten Years' Diggings, p. 285), no urn of the other classes of sepulchral pottery has occurred, of which the bottom bears any external ornament.

III. Small vessels, probably for food, greatly varying in fashion and ornament. They occur usually with unburnt remains, and were placed near the head or at the feet; but not unfrequently with incinerated bones-not, however, containing them. The dimensions are from four inches and a half to five or six inches in height. The mouth usually is wide, the foot small. It is difficult to determine the age of these vessels, which frequently are rude, and almost devoid of ornament; whilst others are well wrought, and elaborately decorated with impressed markings and herring-bone patterns. Examples occur in which there are several small projections or vertical ribs at intervals around the circumference, mostly formed in a groove round the upper part of the urn, and these are sometimes pierced, in the direction of the groove, with small holes just sufficient for passing a thin cord.

IV. Drinking cups, as designated by Sir Richard Colt Hoare, doubtless in true accordance with their intention. These are highly ornamented vessels of comparatively fine clay, well baked, holding from two to three pints. The height is about six inches to nine inches; the form contracted in the middle, and somewhat globular towards the foot; the colour usually light reddish brown; the ornament, very elaborate, and in many instances produced apparently by a toothed implement, is arranged in horizontal bands, chevrony patterns, triangular or lozengy compartments, etc., mostly covering the entire surface. These cups are usually found with unburnt remains, and had been placed near the shoulders. Flint relics of superior workmanship occur with them. In a few instances a diminutive bronze awl has been found; but Mr. Bateman, in the course of the indefatigable researches by which his highly instructive collection at Youlgrave was formed, came to the conclusion

that these beautiful vessels appear to belong to a period when metal was almost unknown. A few examples are known of a remarkable variation in form, having a small handle at the side. Of these, one was disinterred by Mr. Bateman near Pickering, Yorkshire;' another, found in the Isle of Ely, is figured in the Archæological Journal;2 the third, obtained in Berkshire, is in the British Museum.3

Of the first class of sepulchral urns a remarkable example was brought to light in Holyhead Island, accompanying one of the two deposits found at Porth Dafarch, to which allusion has been made at the commencement of this memoir. The discovery was briefly noticed in the Archæologia Cambrensis, and more fully recorded in the Archæological Journal. The urns have been deposited in the British Museum, where previously scarcely any specimen of the sepulchral pottery of the British islands was to be seen. Through the kindness of Mr. Franks, keeper of the British Antiquities, the accompanying representations of the relics in question are now submitted to the readers of the Archæologia Cambrensis, with a view also of the little bay on the western shore of the island where they were found.

In October, 1848, an interment that presented some unusual circumstances in the mode of deposit was accidentally noticed on the shore of the small harbour or bay, called Porth Dafarch, about midway between the

1 Figured in Ten Years' Diggings, p. 209. 2 Archæol. Journ., vol. xix, p. 364.

3 In Mr. Warne's Celtic Tumuli of Dorset a drinking cup with a broad handle is noticed, found on Ballard Down. ("Tumuli opened at various periods," p. 71.) The late Mr. Davison described one of simple cylindrical fashion, and without ornament, found, 1826, in a circular cist, with a skeleton, at Winford Eagle, Dorset. Figured, Gent. Mag., vol. xcvii, p. 99. Another, of different form, was found on the same Down by the Rev. J. H. Austen, and is figured, Papers read before the Purbeck Society, p. 159, pl. xv.

Arch. Cambr., vol. iv, p. 67. See also Arch. Journal, vol. vi, p. 226. The woodcuts prepared for the memoir then given, and now in possession of Mr. A. W. Franks, late Director Soc. Ant., are here reproduced by his obliging permission.

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