ROUGH STONE MONUMENTS 



pottery, a few implements of copper and many of 

 flint. Among the ornaments which the dead 

 carried — for they seem to have been buried in 

 complete costume — were several axe-shaped pen- 

 dants of polished stone, precisely similar to those 

 of Sardinia, Malta, and France. The most im- 

 portant cemeteries of this period are those of 

 Castelluccio, Melilli, and Monteracello. Near 

 this last site was also found a round hut based 

 on a course of orthostatic slabs of typically 

 megalithic appearance. 



In the full bronze age, called the Second Siculan 

 Period, burial in rock-tombs still remained the 

 rule. The tomb-form had developed considerably. 

 The circular type was still usual, though beside 

 it a rectangular form was fast coming into favour. 

 The main chamber often had side-niches, and was 

 usually preceded by a corridor which sometimes 

 passed through an antechamber. Occasionally 

 we find an elaborate open-air court outside the 

 facade of the tomb, built very much after the 

 megalithic style. Large vertical surfaces of rock 

 were carefully sought after for tombs, and the 

 almost inaccessible cliffs of Pantalica and Cassi- 

 bile are literally honeycombed with them. Where 

 such surfaces of rock were unobtainable a vertical 

 shaft was sunk in the level rock and a chamber 

 was opened off the bottom of it. The tradition 

 of the banquet of the dead is still kept up, but the 

 number of the skeletons in each tomb steadily 



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