EARLY MAN 



The form of the horse's figure as represented on the ancient British 

 coins is known to be a debased copy of the elegantly depicted animals 

 represented on the beautiful pieces struck by Philip II of Macedon, but 

 it shows, like the Uffington White Horse, a certain artistic power on the 

 part of the ancient British artificers to whom both works may reason- 

 ably be attributed. 



It is very difficult to explain the purpose of these gigantic hill-side 

 figures. In Buckinghamshire they take the form of crosses. At Cerne 

 Abbas (Dorset), and at Wilmington (Sussex) there are very large human 

 figures represented in the same way on the hill-sides. They seem always 

 to have been so placed as to be visible over a considerable district, and 

 although there are certain slight variations perhaps, the rule seems to 

 have been for them to occupy the side of a hill which faces in more or 

 less of a northern direction. Usually a prominent spur of a range of 

 hills has been selected for the purpose, and it is quite clear that it was 

 part of the purpose, whatever that purpose may have been, for the 

 figures to be clearly seen from great distances. The selection of chalk 

 hills, again, and the removal of the turf so as to leave the chalk bare, 

 are indications which point to the conclusion that these figures had some 

 close connexion with the people of the districts in which we find them. 

 It is almost impossible to doubt that they were more or less intimately 

 related to the religion of the ancient Britons. The periodical scourings 

 or weedings to which the White Horses were subjected at a somewhat 

 later date, and the cudgel-playing and other rural sports and festivities 

 which always followed, may very well be the modern survivals of 

 periodical religious gatherings when the inhabitants of the Vale of the 

 White Horse met for religious rites or ceremonies. The explanation 

 suggested by the Rev. Francis Wise, and offered in a well-known book' 

 on the subject, that the White Horse at Uffington is a memorial of the 

 great battle in which Ethelred and Alfred defeated the Danes in 871, is 

 not now generally accepted. 



ANCIENT BRITISH COINS 



The ancient British coins found at various times in Berkshire can 

 hardly be described as numerous, but they are of great variety and 

 interest. At Weycock, associated with Roman remains was found a 

 small coin of tin, without inscription, but bearing on the obverse a very 

 rude representation of the human head, possibly meant to appear 

 helmeted, and on the reverse a long-bodied animal probably intended 

 for a horse. The attenuated body and neck of this animal are almost 

 suggestive of that ancient White Horse on the hill-side at Uffington 

 which gives its name to the valley already mentioned which it overlooks. 



Another coin of unusual beauty is that inscribed (obv.) CUIMOB, and 

 (rev.) TASCIIOVANTIS, of which specimens have been found at Sandy 



1 T. Hughes, The Scouring of the White Horse. 

 191 



