Indeed, the Stonehenge Bell Barrows are the very crown of the
Sepulchral Mound on Salisbury Plain. Unlike the Long Barrow, they are
entirely surrounded by a circular ditch, from which material for the
Mound has been excavated; within the ditch is a circular area level
with the turf, from which the mound rises from five to fifteen feet in
a graceful conical form. The diameter will be upwards of one hundred
feet, so that the entire structure is considerably larger and more
impressive than the Bowl Barrow.
3. "The Disc Barrow," so named by Dr. Thurnam, the great Barrow
expert, from its resemblance to a flat dish surrounded by a deep rim.
It consists of a circular area, level with surrounding turf, having a
diameter of about one hundred feet. This circular area is enclosed by
a ditch with a bank on the outside, both usually very regular and well
constructed. Within, at the centre, is a mound not more than a foot
high containing the sepulchral deposit. Occasionally there are more
than one of these minute mounds, which often escape notice by reason
of their insignificance.
It is very significant that the Disc Barrow is more plentiful around
Stonehenge than in any other part of Wiltshire. Elsewhere they are
comparatively rare.
In the "Round" Barrows it is not uncommon to find that the body has
been cremated before interment. In the Bowl and Bell types, about
three out of every four bodies have been so disposed of. In Dorset the
relative interments, by cremation or otherwise, is four out of five,
while in Cornwall cremation is almost universal.
Almost without exception, however, the Disc Barrows contain only
cremated remains. The existing impression is that these three forms of
Round Barrow were in use at one and the same time, but that the Bowl
Barrow was the earliest, followed by the Bell, and that the Disc is
the latest form of all. From construction, if for no other reason,
this hypothesis seems perfectly tenable.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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