ARCHEOLOGY. 



The food-vessel type of urn (fig. 23) is somewhat 

 flower-pot shaped, but usually with a highly orna- 

 mental upper part, which formed a kind of per- 

 pendicular collar above the sloping sides. The 

 drinking-cup ' type of urn (fig. 24) was more can- 



Fig. 24. ' Drinking-cup ' Urn, 6 inches high ; and 

 Ladle of Ox-horn. 



shaped than the food-vessel, taller in proportion to 

 its width, broader in the base, bulging in the lower 

 part, and sloping outwards above the constriction 

 where the bulging of the side met the sloping 

 portion. These urns are sometimes found set 

 at the shoulder of the skeleton, sometimes at 

 the feet. In one remarkable case at Broomend, 

 in Aberdeenshire, one of these drinking-cups 

 was found with a ladle or spoon of ox-horn, the 

 handle of which had been placed in the urn, 

 and the bowl hanging over the side. The 

 accompanying remains were those of a full- 

 grown person and an infant, and the larger 

 body had been wrapped in an ox-hide. 



Bronze Age, In the Bronze Age, burning the 

 dead body was the more common practice, though 

 the custom of burying unburnt bodies was con- 

 tinued along with it. Most of the round barrows 

 of England, and some of the great circular cairns 

 of Scotland, may be referred to this period. The 

 results of excavations in the stone circles of Scot- 

 land have shewn that, in many cases, they were 

 places of sepulture of the Bronze Age, with de- 

 posits of urns and burnt bones in the inclosed 

 areas, accompanied by relics of bronze. The only 

 stone implements found in them are arrow-heads, 

 flakes, and perforated axes, all of which were in 

 use in the Bronze Period. These stone circles 

 reach their highest development in Great Britain, 

 where they are more numerous and more impos- 

 ing than in any other country of Europe. In 

 Scotland they are very numerous, especially in the 

 north-eastern districts. The larger of the two 



Salisbury Plain, which has its upright pillars 

 linked together by lintel-stones, is 106 feet in 

 diameter. But these are far surpassed by the 

 greatest of all the stone circles that at Abury, 

 also in Wiltshire, which is 1080 feet in diameter, 

 and incloses two smaller circles, each 330 feet in 

 diameter. 



Usually, the bodies seem to have been burned 

 on the spot where the barrow was reared. Some- 

 times the incinerated bones were simply placed in 

 a cist without any accompanying urn, but more 

 generally they were placed in an urn of a different 

 type from those previously described. The true 

 cinerary urn was usually of the flower-pot shape, 

 and larger, heavier, and of coarser make than 

 those of the ' food-vessel ' and ' drinking-cup ' 

 type. They are less elaborately ornamented, and 

 distinguished by a heavy overhanging rim. Some- 

 times they are inverted on a flat stone, on which 

 the ashes have been gathered in a heap ; at other 

 times, the ashes have been placed in the urn, and 

 a cover of thin slaty stone roughly chipped to a 

 rounded shape placed on it. Sometimes the urn is 

 inclosed in a cist under a tumulus ; at other times, 

 simply set in a hole in the ground. In Britain, 



Fig. 25. Stonehenge. 



circles at Stennis, in Orkney, has a diameter of 

 366 feet The great circle at Stonehenge, on 



Fig. 26. 

 Danish Bronze Razor-knife, 5$ inches long. 



bronze knives or razors and bronze daggers are 

 occasionally found in these urns among the burnt 

 bones, or deposited along with them ; and in 

 Denmark are similarly found razor-knives and 

 implements of the toilet, arrow -heads and 

 scrapers or 'strike-lights ;' and sometimes knives 

 of flint which continued in use, even in the 

 height of the Bronze Age are also found with 



Fig. 27. Dress of a Female Bronze Age. 



such interments. Bronze swords, spear-heads, 

 and celts seem only on the rarest occasions U 



