417 



TUMULUS. 



TUMULUS. 



Of late years great attention has been paid by the northern anti- 

 quaries to the primeval remains of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, and 

 the barrows of those countries have been carefully and systematically 

 explored. Along with certain local peculiarities they bear a general 

 resemblance to the barrows occurring throughout the north of Ger- 

 many, Holland, parts of France, and in our own country. From their 

 contents the Danish antiquaries have classified them into barrows of 

 the Stone, the Bronze, and the Iron periods a division already sug- 

 gested to English antiquaries by the contents of English barrows. 

 Those of the Stone. period are the oldest. They are often of great ske, 

 and are " peculiarly distinguished by their important circles of stones 

 and large stone chambers, in which are found the remains of unturnt 

 bodies, together with objects of stone and amber." (Worsaae, ' Prime- 

 val Antiquities of Denmark,' Thoms's Trans , p. 93.) The earth has been 

 removed from many of the more remarkable of these barrows, so as to 

 leave only the stone circles, chambers, or cromlechs, exposed; but enough 

 remains, as Mr. Worsaae observes, to show that they must have been 

 works of enormous labour ; and they afford a proof that the people 

 who formed them, and who were probably the earliest inhabitants of 

 Denmark, however rude, " could scarcely have led a mere nomadic 

 life, but must have had settled habitations, and that they were a 

 vigorous people, who cherished care and reverence for the departed." 



The tumuli of the Bronze period, according to the same author, 

 " have no circles of massive stones, no stone chambers, in general no 

 large stones on the bottom, with the exception of stone cists placed 

 together, which, however, are easily to be distinguished from the stone 

 chambers. They consist, as a general rule, of mere earth, with heaps 

 of small stones, and always present themselves to the eye- as mounds of 

 earth, which, in a very few rare instances, are surrounded by a small 

 circle of stones, and contain relics of bodies which have been burned 

 and placed in vessels of clay with objects of metal." These tumuli 

 belong evidently to a later period than the preceding, and to a people 

 more advanced towards civilisation. In the rudest ages the people 

 usually bury their dead ; later, the practice of cremation is resorted to 

 and accompanied with much religious ceremony ; and it is only when 

 the pagan rites yield before the progress of Christianity that a return 

 is made to the simpler custom of interring the corpse unburnt. In the 

 Scandinavian burials of the Bronze period, the body seems to have been 

 burnt on a pile of wood ; the bones and ashes were then collected, and, 

 together with various bronze implements and ornaments belonging to the 

 deceased, put into an earthen vessel, or rude stone chest (cist), which 

 formed the nucleus of the intended barrow. This central vessel was 

 surrounded with small stones, and then covered with earth, so as to 

 form a barrow. (Worsaae.) Only persons of eminent rank or merit 

 seem to have had an entire barrow ; in most cases the barrows seem 

 to have belonged to families, while some are evidently the ordinary 

 burial-places of the poor, excavations being made in the barrows in 

 order to insert urns containing bones, probably burnt at a common 

 burning-place, as described by Mr. Kemble. The barrows of this 

 period are usually formed on high ground, and, whenever practicable, 

 so as to be seen far at sea. They are especially numerous in the islands, 

 and in Jutland, Sleswig, and Holstein. 



Of Danish barrows of the Iron period the examples are comparatively 

 few, and their date is evidently comparatively recent. In external 

 form they resemble those of the Bronze period, and they are not unlike 

 them in their internal arrangement ; but they contain only unburnt 

 bodies. Swedish and Norwegian barrows occur, however, in which 

 burnt bodies are found. A distinctive feature of the barrows of this 

 period is that they contain " not only remains of the warrior but also 

 those of his horse," together with his trappings. Some of them have 

 chambers of wood, and all display traces of costly habits and compara- 

 tive refinement of manners in trinkets of gold, silver, and glass, figures 

 not inelegantly carved and engraved of birds and other animals, runic 

 inscriptions, tc. ; and in some, as indeed in some of the Bronze period, 

 trunks of oaks, rudely hollowed out like a coffin, have been found. 



The first careful investigations into the tumuli of this country were 

 made by Dr. Stukeley in the neighbourhood of Stonehenge a century 

 and a quarter ago. (Stukeley 's ' Account of Stonehenge,' fol., 1740.) 

 The attention of the public was a second time drawn to the subject by 

 Douglas, in his ' Naenia Britannica,' published in 1793 : his researches 

 were confined to the southern coast of England, and chiefly to the 

 county of Kent. The investigations begun by Stukeley and Douglas 

 were prosecuted, with ample means to carry them into effect, by the 

 late Sir Richard Colt Hoare, whose attention was first directed to the 

 subject, and who was materially assisted in his researches and literary 

 labours, by Mr. Cunnington, a tradesman and self-taught antiquary of 

 Wiltshire. In no part of Europe had tumuli been so completely 

 explored as by Sir K. C. Hoare in Wiltshire, and he minutely and 

 carefully explained their contents in his ' Ancient Wiltshire,' 2 vols. 

 fol., 1810, 1821. The classification of tumuli according to their shape, 

 proposed by Sir R C. Hoare, has been so generally adopted by English 

 ami French antiquaries that it may be useful to give it at length, with- 

 out however accepting the conclusions which the author arrived at, 

 and which indeed are scarcely consistent with the present state of 

 archaeology. " We must not," he observes, " consider every barrow 

 as a mere tumulus, or mound, loosely and fortuitously thrown up, but 

 must rather view them as works of evident design, and executed with 

 the greatest symmetry and precision. The Lony barrow (see No. 1, 



ARTS AHD SCI. DIV. VOL. VIII. 



annexed illustration), from its singular form and large size, claims the 

 first notice. These barrows differ considerably in form as well as mag- 



nitude. Some resemble the half of an egg cut down the middle ; some 

 are almost triangular ; some form a ridge of equal breadth throughout ; 

 but the greater number are wider at one end than the other, and that 

 end is usually turned towards the east. They are commonly placed on 

 elevated situations, and stand singly. They differ materially from cir- 

 cular barrows in their contents ; for brass weapons, or trinkets, are never 

 found in them. With few exceptions, bodies appear to have been laid 

 on the floor of the barrow, at the broadest end, in an irregular manner ; 

 and near one or two cists, cut in the native chalk, and covered with a 

 pile of stones or flints. The Bowl barrow (No. 2) is the shape most 



usually found. It abounds on the Mendip Hills, iii Somersetshire, 

 and is sometimes surrounded with a shallow ditch^ Dorsetshire also 

 contains many barrows of this class. The Bell barrow (No. 3), from 

 the symmetry of its shape, is probably an improvement on the bowl 

 barrow. It occurs in the vicinity of Stonehenge. 



Of the Druid barrow, as it was miscalled by Stukeley, Sir R. C. 

 Hoare distinguishes three varieties (Nos. 4, 10, and 11). The out- 

 ward vallum, with the ditch within, is moulded with great care. In 

 the area are sometimes one, two, or three small mounds, which in 

 most cases have been found to contain small articles, such as cups, and 

 lance-heads, also amber, jet, and glass beads. Two other varieties of 

 the Druid barrow have been casually observed. One is a low mound, 

 inclosed within a vallum, and occupying almost the whole area (No. 5). 

 In the other, the area is perfectly flat, and rises in a curved line from 

 the vallum (No. 9). 



The Twin barrow (No. 7) consists of two conical mounds within a 

 foss. The Broad barrow (No. 9) resembles the bowl barrow, but is 

 wider and flatter at top. All these are regarded as belonging to the 

 Celtic or ancient British period. 



Two other forms are mentioned the Pond barrow (No. 6) and the 

 Cone barrow (No. 8). Of the cone barrow, only a single example has 

 been noticed, near Everleigh, on Salisbury Plain. Small cone-shaped 

 barrows placed together in groups are usually of Saxon date : large 

 numbers of them occur in the eastern parts of Kent. 



Another kind appears to have escaped the notice of Sir Richard C. 

 Hoare. These barrows are so slightly elevated that they can scarcely 

 be discovered, except in the morning and evening, when the shadows 

 are broad and marked. Then- contents show them to belong to an 

 early period. 



No. 12, a tumulus or rather the ruins of a tumulus called Mill- 

 barrow, near Avebury, Wiltshire, set round with stones, was represented 

 and described by Dr. Stukeley, in his work on Avebury, fol., 1743 : it 

 is fully described and figured under AVEBURY, in GEOO. DIV. 



Tumuli frequently occur arranged in a row. In fig. 17 is shown a 

 series of four known as the Bartlow Hills, hi the county of Essex, on 

 the south border of Cambridgeshire. They vary in size, as indicated 

 in the diagram. The largest, a, measuring 1 42 feet in diameter by 

 44 feet in height, was explored in 1835 by Mr. J. G. Rokewode and 

 other gentlemen, who excavated a passage or gallery on the surface of 

 the natural earth, from the extreme base to near the centre of the 

 barrow. This line or gallery is marked (No. 18) a, extending 56 feet, 

 where the workmen were ordered to extend the open space on each 

 side ; and at the distance of 13 feet they came to a square inclosure, or 



chest (c), which was found to contain various antique relics of genuine 

 Roman or of Brito-Roman manufacture. These were glass urns or 

 bottles, a bronze lamp and cup, a patera, a prscfericulum (a long or 

 tall vase, with a particular handle), glass vessels, a folding chair, bronze 

 strigils,'an enamelled vase, Ac. The last and the bronze prajfericulum 



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