THE CELTIC TUMULI OF DORSET. 69 



shops, and utilised the shale in the manufacture of rings, armlets, 

 amulets, beads, and various articles of domestic use and furniture, 

 with the knowledge they possessed of the use of the lathe, which 

 we have reason to believe was unknown to the native inhabitants. 

 This manufacture nourished very actively, if we may judge from 

 the heaps of debris which remain to the present day, and formerly 

 gave rise to theories of their origin and use, very wide of the truth, 

 and impressed the minds of some antiquaries with ideas of mystery 

 and wonder.* These theories have been exploded by sounder 

 views and clearer archaeological knowledge. The debris to which 

 I have alluded consists of circular portions or discs of the shale, 

 generally perforated and marked with circular lines, which are 

 simply the refuse parts of the block on which the lathe had 

 operated in turning rings, beads, amulets, &c. ; but they formerly 

 obtained the name of " Coal Money," which mystified them in a 

 remarkable manner. There may have been a superstitious use 

 made of these objects, but certainly this was not their primary use 

 and design. It is, however, somewhat remarkable that it has been 

 rare to find one of these specimens of " Coal Money" in the 

 Purbeck Tumuli, which seems to afford a proof of the pre-Koman 

 age of these interments. Mr. Austin certainly does record the 

 finding of a ring or armlet, a fragment of coal money, and some 

 pieces of the un worked material in two barrows (^N"o. 86, 88) of the 

 early Romano-British period, in Purbeck, and Hutchins, in the 

 notice of a barrow opened at Bradford Peverell (vol. ii., ed. i., 

 p. 140, S.) records the discovery of urns and " leather money as 

 found at Kimmeridge." This is a curious fact, and would show 

 that the contents of this barrow were deposited probably in an 

 early part of the second century, if not in the first, after 

 Vespasian's conquest. But we may also remember another very 

 remarkable discovery at Stoborough, near Wareham, recorded by 



* " A minute account of the Kimmeridge Coal Money, a most mysterious 

 and nondescript article " ; by William Augustus Miles, Esq. London, 

 Nichols and Son, 1826. See also an article " On the Ancient Use of 

 Kimmeridge Coal" in Mr. Warne's Ancient Dorset ; by W. S. 



