CENOTAPHS. 27 



a sing-le body, it is by no means an infrequent occurrence to 

 find two or more bodies which have evidently been all interred 

 together^ and at the same time. The inference which may be 

 drawn from this is discussed in more than one place in the de- 

 tailed account of the examination of the barrows, and need not 

 be specially noticed here. 



Barrows are sometimes met with in which, upon examination, 

 no burial appears to have taken place, since no remains of the body 

 are to be discovered. In the g-reater number of these instances 

 there can be little doubt that, in consequence of the imperfect ex- 

 ploration of the mound, the place of burial has been missed, and 

 in other cases that a small deposit of burnt bones or the almost 

 entirely decayed bones of an unburut body have been overlooked. 

 Large numbers of barrows have been opened by merely cutting- a 

 narrow trench throug-h the centre \ It will readiljO^e understood 

 how, in a process like this, the central burial might not be dis- 

 covered ; for in throwing up a mound of considerable size, that part, 

 which was at one time the centre, might eventually be at some 

 distance from the central point of the completed barrow. Graves 

 have also been very frequently overlooked, the explorers not being 

 aware that it was the habit to bury beneath the natural surface. 

 But there are other cases, and such have occurred to myself, when 

 the most careful examination has failed to discover any trace of an 

 interment. These empty barrows have been spoken of as ceno- 

 taphs, monuments raised to commemorate but not to contain the 

 dead. Mr. Kemble, holding the view that barrows were prepared 

 beforehand, and that, from time to time, bodies were inserted in 

 the mounds so set apart, believed that the barrows where no burials 

 are found had never been used for interment ". Neither of these 

 views appears to be a tenable one, and both seem modes of account- 

 ing for the absence of burials much too artificial for such a state 

 of society as may be supposed to have existed during the ages when 

 barrow burial was in use in Britain. With every wish to defer 

 to the great practical knowledge of Mr. Kemble, as well as to 



' It must be understood that I am not now referring to my own barrow diggings. 

 My practice has always been to drive a trench, the width of the barrow as it was 

 originally constituted and before it was enlarged by being ploughed down, from 

 south to north, through and beyond the centre. I have not always thought it necessary 

 to remove the whole of the north and west sides, as they are generally found to be 

 destitute of secondary interments ; in very many cases, however, I have turned over 

 the whole mound. 



- Horse Ferales, p. 99, in an article upon Burial and Cremation, reprinted from the 

 Archaeological Journal, vol. xii. 



