Grave-mounds and Their Contents: A Manual of Archæology, as Exemplified in the Burials of the Celtic, the Romano-British, and the Anglo-Saxon PeriodsJewitt, Llewellynn Frederick William
History
Grave-mounds and Their Contents: A Manual of Archæology, as Exemplified in the Burials of the Celtic, the Romano-British, and the Anglo-Saxon Periods
Jewitt, Llewellynn Frederick William
Great Britain -- Antiquities; Megalithic monuments -- Great Britain; Mounds -- Great Britain
When the interment has been by CREMATION, the remains of the burnt
bones, etc., have been collected together and placed either in a small
heap, or enclosed in a skin or cloth, or placed in a cinerary urn,
which is sometimes found in an upright position, its mouth covered
with a flat stone, and at others inverted over a flat stone or on the
natural surface of the earth. This position, with the mouth downwards,
is, perhaps, the most usual of the two. In some instances the bones
were clearly enclosed, or wrapped, in a cloth before being placed in
the urn. The place where the burning of the body has taken place is
generally tolerably close to the spot on which the urn rests, or on
which the heap of burnt bones has been piled up. Wherever the burning
has taken place there is evidence of an immense amount of heat being
used; the soil, for some distance below the surface, being in many
places burned to a redness almost like brick. Remains of charcoal, the
refuse of the funeral pyre, are very abundant, and in some instances
I have found the lead ore, which occurs in veins in the limestone
formation of Derbyshire, so completely smelted with the heat that it
has run into the crevices among the soil and loose stones, and looks,
when dug out, precisely like straggling roots of trees.
Is it too much to suppose that the discovery of lead may be traced to
the funeral pyre of our early forefathers? I think it not improbable
that, the fact of seeing the liquid metal run from the fire as the ore
which lay about became accidentally smelted, would give the people
their first insight into the art of making lead--an art which we know
was practised at a very early period in Derbyshire and other districts
of this kingdom.[10] Pigs of lead of the Romano-British period,
inscribed with the names of emperors and of legions, have occasionally
been found; but much earlier than these are some cakes (if the term can
be allowed) of lead which have evidently been cast in the saucer-shaped
hollows of stones. Of these, which are purely British, some examples
have fortunately been preserved.
But to resume. The positions I have spoken of in which the cinerary
urns and heaps of burnt bones have been usually found, will be
best understood by the accompanying engravings. The first (fig.
19) represents a section of a barrow in which, at _a_, is shown a
sepulchral urn in an upright position, capped with a flat stone; and
at _b_ a heap of burnt bones piled up in the usual fashion, and first
covered with earth and then with the loose stones of which the whole
barrow was composed.
[Illustration: Fig. 19.]
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