INCENSE CUPS. 



77 



is one which is easily made upon clay, and which would occur 

 to the maker as a means of decoration almost as readily as 

 any other ; yet it is very rarely found amongst the many and 

 varied designs upon the cinerary urns and other vessels, and 



Fig. 66. f. 



not upon any of them, including- the 'incense cups/ except on 

 the bottom '. Several have occurred, and in various parts of 



1 Some instances of the occurrence of a cross pattern upon sepulchral vessels are 

 brought together in this note, and some others will be found in a succeeding one. 

 I have met with it upon the bottom of two ' food vessels/ discovered in Northumber- 

 land, in one of which it almost assumes the form of the fylfot [fig. 79]. Mr. Bate man 

 mentions it as existing on a 'food vessel' from Newton-upon-Rawcliffe, in the North 

 Riding of Yorkshire. Ten Years' Diggings, p. 285. It occurs upon the inside of an 

 urn from Worgret, near Wareham. Warne, Celtic Tumuli of Dorset Tumuli Opened 

 at Various Periods, p. 29. The cinerary urn noticed by Hoare, Ancient Wilts, vol. i. 

 p. 241, and found at Woodyates, has a cross on the bottom of the inside of the vessel, 

 made by the impression of a twisted thong. One from Roke Down, Dorset (Mr. 

 Durden's Collection at Blandford), has a cross in relief on the bottom of the inside ; 

 and another similar one was found on King's Down, Badbury, Dorset. Amongst 

 a number of fragments of many different vessels (some of them ornamented with 

 a zigzag pattern of twisted-thong impressions, now in the British Museum, and 

 found in Brixham Cave, but under what circumstances is not recorded) is the bottom 

 of a large and thick vase which has on the inside a raised cross, with a circular de- 

 pression at the intersection of the limbs. The same figure, and applied in the same 

 way, has been met with on Irish urns : one is figured, Proc. Soc. of Ant., Second 

 Series, vol. ii. p. 5. 



Not to mention other instances where the cross has occurred in one form or another 

 on vessels of pottery, it may suffice to refer the reader to Hydriotaphia Cambrensis 

 (reprinted from Arch. Cambr., Third Series, vol. xiv), pp. 40, 62 seq. Mr. Stanley and 

 Mr. Way have there collected a large number of instances. Perhaps in some of these 

 cases it would be more correct to say that the circular bottom of the vessel is 

 quartered, than that it is marked with a cross, though by the process of quartering 

 itself that figure is formed. In these instances the quarters are frequently filled in 

 with lines arranged vertically and horizontally in alternate series, or to speak 

 heraldiGally, first and fourth vertical lines, second and third horizontal lines. The 



