The Celtic druids / By Godfrey Higgins.

  • Godfrey Higgins
Date:
1827
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Celtic druids / By Godfrey Higgins. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    53/536
    from the surface of the downs in some places, especially where it has been ploughed. This being about a foot thick, rested on a soft layer of mould another foot, in which was inclosed an urn full of bones. The urn was of unbaked clay, of a dark reddish colour, and crumbled into pieces. It had been rudely wrought with small mouldings round the verge, and other circular channels on the outside, with several indentures between, made with a pointed tool. The bones had been burned, and crowded all together in a little heap, not so much as a hat-crown would contain, it appears to have been a girl of about fourteen years old, by their bulks, and the great quantity of female ornaments mixed with the bones, all which we gathered. Beads of all sorts, and in great number, of glass of divers colours, mostly yellow, one black; many single, many in long pieces notched between, so as to resemble a string of beads, and these were generally of a blue colour. There were many of amber, of all shapes and sizes ; flat squares, long squares, round, oblong, little and great. Likewise many of earth, of different shapes, magnitude, and colour; some little and white, many large and flattish like a button, others like a pulley; but all had holes to run a string through, either through their diameter or sides. Many of the button sort seem to have been covered with metal, there being a rim worked in them, wherein to turn the edge of the covering. One of these was covered with a thin film of pure gold. These were the young lady’s ornaments, and all had undergone the fire, so that what would easily consume fell to pieces as soon as handled ; much of the amber was burned half through. This person was a heroine, for we found the head of her javelin in brass. At the bottom are two holes for the pins that fastened it to the staff. Besides, there was a sharp bodkin, round at one end, square at the other, where it went into a handle. I still preserve whatever is permanent of these trinkets ; but we recomposed the ashes of the illus- trious defunct, and covered them with earth, leaving visible marks at the top of the barrow having been opened, to dissuade any other from again disturbing them; and this was our practice in all the rest. “ Then we opened the next barrow to it, inclosed in the same ditch, which we supposed to be that of the husband or father of this lady. At fourteen inches deep, the mould being mixed with chalk, we came to the entire skeleton of a man ; the skull and all the bones exceedingly rotten, and perished through length of time, though this was a barrow of the latest sort, as we conjecture. The body lay north and south, the head to the north.” Not discouraged by the external appearances, and convinced by experience that all interments found near the surface were subsequent deposits, Mr. Cunnington, in 1803, explored the second tumulus, by making a section rather to the south of the centre, when, at the depth of six feet, he came to the floor of the barrow, which was covered with ashes ; and on digging still further to the south, he found a fine oblong cist, about eighteen inches deep, fifteen inches wide, and two feet long, and in it a complete interment of burned bones, and with them six beads apparently of horn, four of which were perforated; the other two were circular, and rather flat, but all appeared as though they had been burned. Dr. Stukeley made the same observation respecting the articles found in the other barrow; but he must have been mistaken as to the amber, for we know that fire would entirely consume it. No. 30. A beautiful bell-shaped barrow, and the largest of this group. It measured in diameter, from ditch to ditch, one hundred and thirty-one feet, and fifteen feet in elevation. The superior size and beauty of this tumulus particularly excited our curiosity, and raised our expectations of success ; but alas ! after immense labour in throwing out the earth, to the depth of fifteen feet, we found only a simple interment of burned bones, unaccompanied by any urn, arms, or trinkets. c 2