By William Long, Esq. 179 



Personal Ornaments. 

 " In the round barrows opened and described by Sir Richard Hoare 

 personal ornaments were found with about 18 per cent, of the primary 

 interments, though, as the following table shows, proportionately 

 more often with the unburnt bodies : — 



Uuburnt Bodies. Burnt Bodies. Total. 



82 272 354 



With personal ornaments 19 45 64 



Percent. 23 16 18 



" Many, perhaps most, of the interments accompanied by ornaments 

 were those of women, but many others, especially where the decorations 

 were the richest and most numerous, were doubtless those of men. 

 . . The articles oi this kind met with were for the most part 

 fabricated from a few well-known materials, still prized for the same 

 purpose, viz., ivory, glass, amber, jet, gold, and bronze. To these 

 must be added various mineral and fossil substances, and the bones, 

 teeth, and shells of animals. . . . The three first-named of the 

 materials on our list are expressly named by Strabo as forming, in 

 his day, the principal imports into this country from Gaul, viz., 

 " ivory bracelets and necklaces, articles of amber and glass, and other 

 similar wares of small value." ^ The discovery of objects made of these 

 materials in the barrows is a confiiraation of the accuracy of Strabo, 

 and affords additional reasons for attributing many of the tumuli of 

 the Bronze period to the Augustan age. As the context of the 

 passage proves, this geographer wrote his description of Britain not 

 later than early in the reign of Tiberius, and prior to the Roman 

 conquest by about thirty years." 



The ornaments of ivory found in Wiltshire barrows amoimt to 

 twelve in number, and they were probably made from the tusks of 

 the wall-US or other marine animal. Another possible source for the 

 ivory of the barrows are the fossilized tusks of the Elephas jjrimigeyiius, 

 which are sometimes " so little altered as to be fit for the purposes 

 of manufacture." See the wood-cut of the ivory armlet found in 

 barrow No. 25. 



* Strabo, iv., 5, § 3. 



N 2 



