By William Long, Esq. 171 



bowl-shaped. A very coarse Wiltshire example of the first variety- 

 is that from a secoudary interment of the round-barrow period, 

 found near the summit of the long-barrow at Winterbourn Stoke. 

 It is figured on page 379 of " Arehseologia '■' vol. xliii. An example 

 of the second, also figured by Dr. Thurnam, which was found in a 

 barrow at Collingbourn is in the museum at Devizes.' " That no 

 food vessels of the third variety have been found in the round bar- 

 rows of Wiltshire is the more remarkable as fragments of such were 

 obtained from the chambered long-barrow at West Kennet, in that 

 county." The last variety is confined to Ireland. These vessels 

 have probably contained offerings of food and drink such as savage 

 and half -civilized nations still place in the tomb, and seem to have 

 been employed for some pultaceous food or pottage which almost 

 everywhere forms the staple diet of man before, and often for ages 

 after, he adopts the use of bread. 



The most handsome of the fictile vases of ancient Britain are the 

 drinking cups. They are usually tall vessels of seven or eight inches 

 in height, thin and well-baked, made from clay tempered with sand 

 or finely-pounded stone ; the colour, varying from a light brown to 

 a somewhat bright red. The general capacity is from two to three 

 pints. The ornamentation is profuse ; the surface, covered with 

 markings incised or punctured, symmetrically arranged in horizontal 

 bands, which, in the more ornate, alternate with square, oblong, or 

 chequer-shaped compartments, placed vertically or obliquely, and 

 variously filled in. Drinking cups are the accompaniment of un- 

 burnt bodies, and were placed in the grave near the head, or more 

 frequently (in Wiltshire twice as often), near the feet. In two in- 

 stances, however, out of two hundred and seventy-two burnt inter- 

 ments in the Wiltshire barrows, this form of vessel was found, 

 perhaps employed from caprice, or in the absence of others of more 

 appropriate form. Dr. Thurnam distinguishes three principal types 

 of drinking cups, chiefly from the character of the brim, two of 

 which belong to England and one to Scotland : a. high-brimmed 

 globose cup ; b. ovoid cup with recurved rina ; c. low-brimmed cup. 



' See Wilts Arch. Mag., x., 93. It was at the feet of the skeleton of a child, 

 in the grave near the centre of the mound. 



