GEOGKAPHY AND ANTIQUITIES. 



OX THE OPENING OF AN ANCIENT TOMB IN THE CEIMEA. 



At the last meeting of the British Association, Dr. Macpherson, of the 

 army, gave a detailed account of the opening of one of the ancient tumuli, 

 found near the city of Kertch, in the Crimea, during the recent occupation 

 of the country by the allied forces. The present town of Kertch is built 

 close to the site where 500 years B. c. the Milesians founded a colony. 

 About fifty years before Christ, this colony became subject to Rome. In the 

 year 375 of our era, the colony was utterly annihilated by the Huns. The 

 characteristic features around Kertch are the immense tumuli, or artificial 

 mounds, that abound in this locality. Calculated as they are for almost end- 

 less duration, they present the simplest and sublimest monument that could 

 have been raised over the dead. The size and grandeur of the tumuli found 

 in this locality excite astonishing ideas of the wealth and power of the 

 people by whom they were erected, for the labor must have been prodigious 

 and the expenditure enormous. The highest specimens of Hellenic art have 

 been discovered in these tumuli such as sculpture, metal, alabaster and 

 Etruscan vases, glass vessels, remarkable for their lightness, carved ivory, 

 corns, peculiarly pleasing on account of their sharpness and finish, and 

 trinkets, executed with a skill that would vie with that of our best workmen. 

 All originals were forwarded to St. Petersburgh, duplicates being preserved 

 in the Museum at Kertch, and these might have been with ease secured to 

 England on the investment of the place by the allies ; but with the exception 

 of some bas-reliefs, transmitted to the British Museum, the whole of these 

 rare treasures were barbarously made away with. The local tradition is, 

 that these tumuli were raised over the remains, and to perpetuate the memory, 

 of the kings or rulers who held sway over the colonists, and that the earth 

 was heaped upon them annually on the anniversary of the decease of the 

 prince, and for a period of years corresponding to the rank or respect in 

 which its tenant was held, or had reigned ; and to this clay successive layers 

 of earth, which were laid on in each succeeding year, can be traced in their 

 coating of sea-shell or charcoal having been first put down. I have counted 

 as many as 30 layers in a scarp made in one of those mounds, about two- 

 thirds from its base. They are to be seen of all sizes, varying from 10 to 300 

 feet in circumference, and in height from 5 to 150 feet, and are usually com- 

 posed of surface soil and rubble masonry. Most of these tumuli appear to 



