133 



Tn confirmation of these ideas it may be added, that tlie resem- 

 blance which this cairn bears to the early cavern temple, whether ex- 

 cavated in the living- rock, or formed in the artificial tumulus, 

 may be traced in every particular. The two upright stones in- 

 dicating the low entrance,* which can be penetrated only in a 

 creeping posture ; the narrow aperture, underneath the sloping 

 stone, through which the aspirant could with difficulty insinuate 

 himself, feet foremost ; the enlarged passage along which he was 

 dragged by the feet with terrifying rapidity, to the mysterious 

 adytuiu ; all are found here, and all bearing an extraordinary 

 similitude to the grotto of Trophonius, which was an excavated 

 cave, twelve feet high by six wide, with a low oven-shaped entrance, 

 t)n each side of which stood an obelisk ; a narrow passage ; an 

 aperture difficult to })ass j-f- — in short, analogous in every part. 

 The same general arrangement may be observed in the caves of 

 Canara in India ; in the excavated temples of Thebaid, in those of 

 Ethiopia so frequently described by Burchard, and in the Pyramids 

 that have been opened. In the temples also the same object is kept 

 in view, and the dark sacellum is expressly said, both byLycophron 

 and Pausanius,::]: to have been denominated the cave, the cella. 



Of the same character as New Grange, AnnacloghmuUen, and 

 the many other cavern temples still remaining in Ireland, appear 

 to have been the excavations in Mount Olivet, near Jerusalem. § 

 In this Mount, the scene of Solomon's idolatrous worship, of Ash- 



* Though not with the same striking precision as at Anna Cloghmullen before mentioned. 

 + Clarke's Travels in Cireece and the Holy Land, Pt. II. p. 4f. — Class. Jour. No. LV. p. 295. 

 -Origin Pagan Idolatry, III. p. 260. 

 t Ibid. III. p. 2o9. 



§ Clarke's Travels, Part II. Greece and Holy Land, p, 579. 

 Origin of Pagan Idolatry, III. pp. 206—259. 



