HAMDOX HILL. 



87 



occasionally exhumed by the quarry-raen. A fissure or 

 chasni was laid open a year or two since, in which were 

 füund many bones of anlmala and some human skuUs ; one 

 of which was taken out by a party of our Society in their 

 excursion on the hill, and is now deposited in our Museum 

 at Taunton. It is the opinion of Dr. Thurnam, an eminent 

 ethnologist, to whom it was sent with a fragment of pottery, 

 that it was either a Roman or an auxiliary in their army. 

 In the same fissure, which is still open, within the last few 

 months, a considerable numberof anlmal and human bones 

 were found ; of the latter, portions of no less than five 

 distinct human bodies lay in a mingled mass ; they were 

 of various ages, one of a child about two years old, and 

 another of about the age of twelve, the others adults. 

 With these were some remains of a horse, many of canine 

 species, the frontal bone of a goat, and some others. 



One of those human skulls is curious as a surgical speci- 

 men ; there being on its left side the mnrk of a blow, 

 indenting the outer bone, or tabula dura, with a circular 

 fracture, and driving in the inner or brittle table on the 

 surface of the brain, which no doubt was the cause of death. 

 It would seem that the chasm having been open at that 

 period, though now closed in at the top, served as a de- 

 pository for dead bodies and rubbish, thrown in without 

 care, as the bodies lay in various directions. 



The rock here, as indeed in most parts of the hill, had 

 been quarried, but not to any great depth, and the rubble 

 of fresh quarries had been thrown thereon. Roman coins 

 are frequently found in the neighbourhood. About forty 

 years since, a large earthen vase was turned up and 

 broken to pieces by the plough, at some distance south 

 from the hill, which contained a large number of such coins, 

 Bome of which I possess. They are small, mostly of copper. 



