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tions, and Is ftill retained in Lapland and fome parts of Norway* ; 

 and the natives of North America bury their dead fitting in 

 holes in the ground, and cover them with a mound of earth t. 



Admitting therefore the monument under confideration to 

 be of Danifli origin, we come to confider the xife of the urn or 

 bafon enclofed in it. Herodotus, ir Melpomene, informs us that 

 the ancient Scythians, not only in making contracts, alliances, &c. 

 but at the fepulchres of their chiefs, drank out of earthen cups 

 or bowls, wine mixed with their own blood, with which liquor alfo 

 rhey flained their fcimitars, fwords and arrows ; and with thefc arms 

 they either decorated the tomb, or interred them with the body. 

 Other ancient and modern writers mention the cuftom of the Scy- 

 thians, Tartars and northern inhabitants of Europe.burying visuals 

 with their dead. The Danes and Scots eat frequently oatmeal 

 or rye-meal mixed with water, which was continued by the 

 latter to the prefent century, under the denomination of croudy ; 

 fome fuch mixture appears to have been in the urn under confi- 

 deration, for the infide feems to be incrufted over with a kind of 

 bran, which being fpilled over, alfo covers part of the outfide. 

 It was, therefore, molt probably a bowl of meal and water interred 

 with the corpfe, to fubfift him during his paflage to the other 

 world, after the cuflom of the northern Pagans. 



I OFFER thefe thovights only as conjeftures or hints, to be fur- 

 ther inveftigated by fome more able pen. As the Danes, Irifh, 

 and all the northern and weflern nations of Europe, had the 



• See Defmpfwn of Lapland. t Buffon. 



fame 



