444 REPORT ON EXCAVATION AT SIGWELL. 



importance to note that in the soil inside the bark coffin no frag- 

 ments of charcoal sufficiently large to be detected with the naked 

 eye were visible ; as hence we see that the body was burnt some 

 distance away from the grave, and that the burnt bones were 

 picked up out of the ashes and carried to the grave separately l f 

 being distributed as deposited throughout the entire length of the 

 coffin examined. The upper bark was much thinner than the lower, 

 the lower being as much as seven-eighths thick, whilst the upper 

 was as little as one-fifth to one-fourth. The upper piece had split 

 in some places and the sand had worked away into the space left 

 empty. In situ, the layers of the bark towards the interior were 

 black, and the outer reddish ; but, on drying, the reddish colour is in 

 many pieces the colour throughout the entire thickness of the bark. 

 Microscopic examination showed no dotted cells, and the Scotch fir 

 is thereby excluded, but it is possible that it may have come from 

 the Wych elm. Its structure, however, had been made exceedingly 

 difficult to examine by the ravages of a fungus. 



In this coffin, together with the bones and two or three flint 

 chips, was a bronze dagger with three rivets, 6*5 inches long from 

 proximal rivet to point. It was much decayed, and did not rest on 

 the bottom of the coffin, but was separated from it by a considerable 

 thickness of dullish yellow sand. Its point was broken away for a 

 length of 7-10 inches, and this part was brought away on a piece of 

 the hardened sandy earth. This lump of earth is preserved with a 

 little of the crumbled-away part of the point adherent to it ; the 

 greater part of the point, however, has been attached, together with 

 the rest of the blade, to a piece of cardboard. The lamina which 

 held the rivets has broken up, and the small fragments of bronze 

 diffused throughout the soil in the bottle labelled ' Sigwell ii b ' 

 represent it. 



The dagger lay near the southern end of the grave, about 2 feet 

 from the end ; its pivot end was at the south, its point at the 

 north. An interment which must have been of a somewhat similar 

 character is described by Mr. Spence Bate, F.K.S., in the ' Trans- 

 actions of the Devon Association,' vol. v. 1872, pp. S5S~55^- There 

 'a mass of comminuted bones mixed with earth, instead of being 



1 For the picking up of burnt bones see Max Miiller, Die Todtenbestattung, Zeit- 

 chrift der Deutschen Morgenland. Gesell. vol. ix. p. 17 ; Colebrooke, * Life and Asiatic 

 Researches/ vol. ii. ibique citata. 



