74 THE CELTIC TUMULI OF DORSET. 



ments of a crushed cup were found, highly decorated with the 

 chevron pattern. Below it were a skeleton and cinerary urns also. 

 On Blandford Racedown (N.) Mr. Austen procured a beautiful cup 

 of the typical form, but smaller than usual, with a skeleton in the 

 contracted position. This cup is figured (in PI. vii., fig. 1, C.T.), 

 and the characteristic chevron pattern is shewn in a clear and 

 elegant design. This seems to have been a very favourite style of 

 Keltic ornament. From a barrow at Woodyates (N., No. 28) Sir 

 R. C. Hoare says he procured an urn, " which I have denominated 

 a drinking cup, coloured red, slightly glazed, and of infinitely better 

 workmanship than the larger sepulchral urn. . . It is singular 

 that this cup should have been deposited without its usual attend- 

 ant skeleton." 



It becomes a question of curious enquiry how it is that this class 

 of vessels, bearing a common resemblance, with little variety except 

 as to pattern, is found disseminated over such an extensive area. 

 In reflecting on this subject I am led to venture the opinion. that 

 they were imported from some place or places of manufacture and 

 distributed by the ordinary routes of commercial intercourse, and 

 the question would then arise where are this centre or centres of 

 industrial art to be found, and at what date of the Keltic sera did 

 they flourish 1 ? Now, judging from the quality of the material, the 

 workmanship, and the artistic taste displayed in these vessels, I 

 should be inclined to attribute their date to a late Keltic period, 

 with the probability of their having been imported from those 

 parts of Gaul and Germany whose kilns supplied in the subsequent 

 Roman age that fine kind of decorated ware which is generally 

 known by the name of Samian. This still leaves unexplained the 

 curious fact of the absence of this class of vessel in Ireland. I can 

 only venture the suggestion that Ireland was not at this time 

 visited in the ordinary lines of commerce. 



The remaining class of fictile ware is that which Sir R. C. 

 Hoare denominated the " Incense Cup " on purely conjectural 

 grounds, for to this day we remain in ignorance of its proper use 

 and function. Its small size, and sides often perforated so as to 



