132 



often thrown up over those who were killed in combat, they became 

 commemorative of the places where battles were fought. 



The practice of raising such monuments over the dead is one of 

 the many aboriginal principles, which seems to have adhered to the 

 different societies that diverged from the confusion at Babel;* such 

 was the tomb of Patroclus in the twenty-third book of the Iliad ; 

 such were the barrows of Achilles, Antilochus, Peneleus, Ajax Tela- 

 mon, CEsytes, 8cc.,-f such were the mounts mentioned by Herodotus 

 as raised over the Scythian Kings ; such those described by Strabo 

 as made by the Myrsians and Phrygians over the dead; such the 

 monument of Dercennus, who governed Laurentum before .Eneas, as 

 spoken of by Virgil ; J such the royal mounts noticed by Lucan ;§ such 

 the pile erected over Damaratus the Corinthian, as recorded by Plu- 

 tarch in his life of Alexander ; such the tomb on the banks of the 

 Wolga, mentioned by Adam Olearius in his travels into Muscovy 

 and Persia ;|| and the tombs in Westphalia and Friesland, described by 

 Keisler in his northern antiquities ; and such were the funeral piles of 

 earth erected by the Danes** over their kings and heroes; and 

 which, during the long establishment of that people in Ireland, be- 

 came, as will be shewn, mixed with the corresponding memorials of 

 the natives. 



The cairns are also said to be equally ancient, and were likewise 

 for sepulture ; they are found in most parts of Europe, differing from 

 the mounts, in being piles of stones and not of earth, and are by some 

 supposed to have been so erected, to guard the corses laid beneath 

 them from the uprooting of wolves and other wild beasts. The most 



* Fide, King's Munim. Antiq. vol. 1. p. 270. 



t See Chandler's Travels, vol. 1. p. 42. t .^neid, lib. 11. 



§ Phars. lib. 8. H Lib. 5. p. 297. 



** See Johannes Cypreas, cited post. 



