162 Stonehenge and its Barrows. 



platform stands the tumulus, which is usually of greater size than 

 the bowl-shaped barrow, and varies from about five to fifteen feet in 

 elevation. It is likewise steeper in proportion to its size, and is 

 consequently more conical in outline. Many of the bell-shaped 

 barrows have a diameter approaching one hundred feet, but not a few 

 very considerably exceed this dimension. The two largest and most 

 beautiful bell-barrows ' I am acquainted with are each within half-a- 

 mile of Stonehenge. They respectively measure fifteen and fourteen 

 and a half feet in height and one hundred and thirty one and one 

 hundred and forty five feet in diameter. Aubrey seems to have been 

 the first to recognize this as a peculiar form of tumulus, whilst 

 Stukeley distinguished it by the name which it still bears, and re- 

 garded it as ' of the newest fashion among the old Britons.^ ^ The 

 bell-shaped barrow is by far more numerous and of more beautiful 

 form in Wiltshire, and especially on the plain around Stonehenge, 

 than in any other part of England; it is indeed probable that it was 

 first constructed in this part of the island, and that it was thence 

 diffused slowly and partially over, other districts. Out of the forty 

 bell-shaped barrows, the contents of which are described by Sir R. 

 Hoare, thirty yielded deposits of burnt bones, and ten entire skele- 

 tons in the place of the primary interment. Of the thirty with 

 interments after cremation, no fewer than twelve were without 

 ornaments or implements of any description. At first sight it 

 might be thought that the practice of burying such objects with 

 the dead, ' omnia quce vivis cordi fuisse arbitrantur,' (Caesar, B. G., 

 vi., 19,) declined as the Britons advanced in civilization; and that, 

 in place thereof, they bestowed more pains on the form of the 

 monumental tumulus.^^ A good example of the twin bell-barrow 

 is No. 29. It consists of two bell-shaped barrows placed side by 

 side on the same platform, and surrounded by a common ditch, 

 which thus becomes oval in form. See Stukeley^s Stonehenge, 

 XXXV., Ancient "Wilts, i., 161. 



^Nos. 30 and 164. " The two largest barrows" in Wiltshire appears to be 

 those near Winterslow Hut; one called "colossal" by Mr. Hutchins: Hoare, 

 Ancient "Wilts, i., 217. 



^Abury, p. 41. 



