148 Danish Cromlechs and Burial Customs, f^c. 



We are bound, however, to accept the construction as given by 

 Mr. Worsaae, — and admitting that this is an accurate representation 

 of a Danish tomb of the stone-period, then I say that it differs in 

 this respect from the tombs of the same period in our country and 

 in France. Ours were without doubt entirely covered with earth. 

 Numbers of them in this state are still to be seen ; — and I do not 

 hesitate to assert ray belief that all of those uhich may noio he seen 

 in these countries, denuded of earth, were originally entirely concealed 

 beneath mounds. My father, who was one of the first to direct the 

 attention of antiquaries to the nature and true use of cromlechs, in 

 an article written for the Archaeological Journal in 1844, thus 

 expresses bis opinion : " The heaped up earth and turf which once 

 lay over the covering stones of the cromlech, having been long ago 

 removed or levelled by time, these ancient depositoiies of the dead 

 have become exposed, and left in detached portions, standing like 

 giant spectres deprived of those accessories, which completed their 

 original form." 



This view is supported by French antiquaries. In a useful little 

 work (by Dr. Alfred Fouquet) before quoted, published at Vannes 

 in 1854 for the use of tourists and archaeologists travelling in the 

 Morbihan, it is stated — "depuis peu, plusieurs antiquaires Morbi- 

 hannais, soutiennent que le Dolmen n'a jamais ete un autel, et qu'il 

 a toujours ^te un caveau sepulcral, eufoui le plus souvent, si ce 

 n'est toujours, dans le sol naturel, ou surmonte d'un tumulus ou 

 butte factice de composition diverse." [Recently many antiquaries 

 of the Morbihan have entertained the opinion that the Dolmen 

 has never been an altar, but has always been a sepulchral vault, 

 most frequently, if not alwaj's, enclosed in the natural soil, or 

 covered by an artificial tumulus composed of different materials,] 

 p. 10. But further on in the book. Dr. Fouquet, in describing a 

 denuded cromlech near Ilennebont, asks " n'a-t-il pas ete charge 

 d'une butte ? Que de buttes Celtiques ont disparu, dont les terres 

 ont et^ portees dans les champs pour y nourrir les bles ! Ne voyons- 

 nous pas tous les jours encore le cultivateur fouiller les buttes de 

 Locmariaquer, ct n'est-ce pas a cette coutume, helas ! trop repandue 

 que Ton doit la d^couverte de la grotte du Maue-Lud ? " [Has it 



