102 INTRODUCTION. 



and in the larger one, in addition, were some pieces of decayed 

 bone. I think there can be no doubt that this curious article 

 must be regarded as a spoon or ladle, and that it had been em- 

 ployed in putting food into or taking it out of the vessel over 

 the edge of which it was hanging. The handle had, no doubt, 

 been originally straight, but had become bent during the time 

 it had remained in the cist. The idea that it was a lamp, now 

 I believe discarded, appears to have originated in the present 

 and accidentally curved appearance of the handle ; the absence 

 of any signs of burning, at what may be called the nozzle, if it 

 had been a lamp, appears to be fatal to its being regarded as 

 having served in that capacity. 



Retaining the name provisionally, I should class the ' drinking 

 cups' with the 'food vessels,' as having both been intended for 

 the same purpose, that of holding food of some kind for the use 

 of the dead. That they were not placed in the grave empty is 

 self-evident, and the remains found in them show that some- 

 thing of a more or less solid nature had been originally deposited 

 there. No explanation has ever been given of their presence in 

 connection with interments so satisfactory as that which regards 

 them as receptacles of food ; and it may be accepted, without 

 much hesitation, as being the true one. 



It is more difficult, however, to understand with what object food 

 was placed in the grave. It has generally been regarded as de- 

 posited there to sustain the buried person on the passage to another 

 world ; but if so, then it could only be considered as representative, 

 for the quantity provided would ill suffice for such a journey. And 

 the same difficulty suggests itself, though not so strongly as it did 

 in the case of weapons and implements associated with interments, 

 that if these several articles were needed by and provided for the 

 dead, how does it happen that so small a number of persons were 

 furnished with that which, it might be supposed, was equally 

 necessary for all. This objection is not of so much force in respect 

 of food as it is of weapons, &c., for the requisite provision might 

 have been placed in the majority of cases with the body, either in 

 a basket or bag, or without anything to hold it; and, therefore, 

 would leave no trace of its former presence. Another reason, 

 and perhaps a more probable one, has been adduced in expla- 

 nation of the custom. It has been a common practice to offer 

 food to the dead, of whom most peoples, in certain states of mind 

 and stages of culture, have felt much dread ; a feeling indeed 



