THE CELTIC TUMULI OF DORSET. 75 



admit the air and for suspension, suggest that it was in some way 

 connected with ignition. If used in funeral rites, as the name 

 implies, we do not know what kind of substance was employed for 

 the purpose of yielding and diffusing its odoriferous fumes, and the 

 infrequency of its occurrence with the cinerary urn renders this 

 explanation more doubtful still. These little vessels are seldom 

 above three inches in height, twice as much, perhaps, in diameter, 

 of a round and compressed form, with a small central aperture. 

 Mr. Warne gives the figure of a very perfect vessel of this class, as 

 the vignette on the title page of C.T. There is no other history 

 attached to it, beyond that of having been found by labourers in 

 removing a large barrow on Burleston Farm, near the old Dewlish 

 Turnpike Gate. They have been but rarely found in Dorset. An 

 elegant incense cup was found with burned bones at Woodyates 

 (Turn. 10, PI. 2, fig. 1). In the Culliford Tree Barrow (S., No. 22) 

 Captain Darner found a small urn, two inches in height and one 

 and a-half broadest diameter, plain and fragile, within a large urn, 

 containing burned bones and ashes. Sir R. C. Hoare's friend and 

 colleague, Mr. Cunnington, found within a very large urn, contain- 

 ing bones and ashes, a richly ornamented incense cup (Woodyates, 

 N. Turn., 26). Those four vessels of this class are the only 

 recorded specimens found in Dorset out of 500 interments of all 

 kinds, thus corroborating the statement of their rarity in this 

 county, but as being oftener found in Wilts (E. T. Stevens, 

 Jottings, p. 179). It is said not to be found in Scandinavia, 

 Germany, and France. It is found in Ireland, not common in 

 Yorkshire, six only having been found there by Canon Greenwell 

 with 71 cremated interments (British Barrows). I will conclude 

 these observations with a suggestion. May they not have served 

 the purpose of holding and conveying live embers to light the 

 funeral pile, as well as for more common and secular use in the 

 domestic economy 1 



17. IRON. In the K district (No 47, Woodyates) the Tumulus 

 which produced the gold ornaments, already noticed, had also 

 several nondescript articles of iron, intermingled with the chalk 



