The Lake-Dwellings of Europe: Being the Rhind Lectures in Archæology for 1888Munro, Robert
History
The Lake-Dwellings of Europe: Being the Rhind Lectures in Archæology for 1888
Munro, Robert
Lake-dwellers and lake-dwellings -- Bibliography; Lake-dwellers and lake-dwellings -- Europe
"The deposit of bones, etc., close to this island, consisted of bones
of cattle, deer, horses, swine, sheep, fowl, dogs, deer, both fallow
and red, a few specimens (in general much broken) of the horns of the
Irish elk, and one or two specimens of human remains, and amongst
them a quantity of articles of a most miscellaneous description,
some of apparently very great antiquity, and others of a much more
recent date. Amongst these are spear-heads, bronze pins, some of
exquisite workmanship, and scarcely any two of exactly the same form.
A brass bowl, hammered out of the solid; two brass vessels, made of
small pieces most curiously riveted together; a brooch of handsome
workmanship; a variety of bone pins and implements; deer-horn combs,
of very great artistic merit; horn discs, like backgammon men;
knives, hooks, and hatchets of iron; swords and spear-heads; an iron
implement, like what a baker uses for putting his loaves in the oven,
made of sheet iron, curiously riveted together, and having in the
centre a circular ornament, with a cross in it, that has evidently
once had an arabesque pattern on it; sundry miniature frying-pans, and
a small whetstone; single and double bronze rings; one coin of the
Emperor Hadrian; one bulla, Pope Paul V.; sundry silver coins, most
of them Edwards, and one so late as James, 1690, and one silver coin,
unfigured in any collection that I have seen.
"Between the island and the ruined church were found two canoes,
hollowed out of single oak trees, but neither of them much more than
two feet wide; the stern of one of them was perforated with numerous
auger holes, about one inch each in diameter.
"On examining the structure of the island itself, which was effected
by cutting a trench 20 feet long by 5 wide, as near the centre as
possible, there was found, at about eight inches under the surface,
which was covered with rank grass growing in a rich mould, a very
close-laid pavement of irregular-sized boulder stones. When this
was removed, a stratum of black earth was exposed, with occasional
fragments of bones through it of swine, fowl, sheep, cattle, and
deer; and about six inches beneath this, a considerable layer of
burned earth, with several inches of unburned clay under it. Then came
a second very closely-laid pavement of large-sized, flat-surfaced
stones, beneath which were alternate layers of black earth and burned
clay and marl, reaching down to the log platform, and interspersed,
like the one above it, with occasional bones and fragments of bones;
some few human remains, viz. one skull, and portions of some more were
got on the exterior edge. No coffin-stone, chest, or other sepulchral
remains.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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