ON SOME DIGGINGS NEAR BRASSINGTON, DEKBYSHIRE. 1 23 



on its side in a contracted attitude, and in tlie later, or Anglo- 

 Saxon interments, it was at full length with the head to the west ; 

 when the latter, the ashes were frequently buried in an urn. 

 These interments were either simply placed in the earth without 

 any protection, or were laid in wooden coffins, or, and more 

 frequently, fenced around with stone flags set on end, and which, 

 when roofed with similar stones, formed a box-like receptacle or 

 cist. Although these receptacles sometimes contain the remains 

 of several individuals, circumstances point to their contents as 

 having been buried at the s.ime time. These " round " barrows 

 have a range in time from the earlier part of the Bronze Age to 

 as recently as the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity. 



But, sparsely scattered throughout Europe, North Africa, and 

 Asia are a class of burial mounds of an earlier type, and which in 

 west and north-west Europe are undoubtedly more ancient than 

 the former kind. These barrows are subject to much variation, 

 and it is impossible to lay down a hard and fast distinction 

 between the two classes. But, looked at as a class, their more 

 elaborate and massive construction and their peculiar internal 

 arrangements suggest the idea that they were erected and finished 

 before receiving their dead, and that their great end was to 

 preserve their contents indefinitely ; while, in the " round " class, 

 the mound was piled up over the interment, and frequently no 

 provision was made for its preservation, the Anglo-Saxons, 

 indeed, often adopting means for its rapid decomposition. 

 These peculiarities are related more probably to a once 

 wide-spread phase of religious belief, than to a particular 

 race — and they seem to have reached their culmination in the 

 funeral customs, embalmings, and catacombs of the ancient 

 Egyptians — the great Pyramid itself being but a development 

 of this type of barrow. It is, however, more to our point to 

 confine ourselves to the prevailing forms of north-western Europe. 

 In these, the receptacle for the dead was similarly constructed to 

 the cist of a " round " barrow, and was usually larger, but it 

 differed in having an entrance, which generally took the form of 

 an underground tunnel or gallery of similar construction. Even 



