'"^—^^— ^M 



REPOKT ON EXCAVATION AT SIGWELL. 447 



ance (but not, as I think, the reality) of a barbed arrow-head. Some 

 of the flints had been burnt. 



The two bones found at a distance from the burnt ones may 

 nevertheless have belonged to the same body as that which fur- 

 nished the ashes ; both are of the right side, the one an os inno- 

 minatum, the other a femur fragment. They may have escaped 

 the perfect burning to which the rest of the skeleton was subjected. 

 Why they were not put together with the perfectly burnt bones I 

 do not' know. The charcoal and ashes of the pyre must have under- 

 gone a very complete sifting to leave so few bones behind amongst 

 them, and also a very complete shifting of place as regards a con- 

 siderable part of them, for the layer of charcoal over the natural 

 soil, which had been reddened, was not thicker than that which 

 was over the parts which were not so reddened. The charcoal over 

 these latter parts, therefore, must have been removed on to them. 

 That the burnt bones were collected in a skin, or possibly in some 

 textile fabric, and so placed where we found them may, in the 

 absence of any relics of bark, or of either of the other substances 

 just mentioned, be shown to be probable by a reference to a paper 

 by the Babu Rajendralala Mitra, in the ' Journal of the Asiatic 

 Society of Bengal, 5 1870, iv. p. 253, where we read that the bones 

 from the pyre ' are washed and put in an urn or tied up in a piece 

 of black antelope skin.' 



That the two large fragments of bone found in this interment 

 may very well have belonged to the same body as that which fur- 

 nished the ashes, is evident from the following observations of Dr. 

 Hutchinson, of Patna, which are put on record by Dr. Norman 

 Chevers, in his 'Medical Jurisprudence,' p. 64, 1870: — 



' Dr. Hutchinson, of Patna, an active observer of all that can throw light upon our 

 knowledge of medical jurisprudence in India, took an opportunity to ascertain exactly 

 the amount of wood which would be necessary to destroy entirely an adult healthy 

 body, and the time that would be necessary for its entire cremation. The pyre was 

 composed of ten maunds of wood, but an equal amount of fala straw was necessary, as 

 also two bottles of oil. The pile was lighted at 6-30 p.m., and at 3 a.m. next morning 

 the consumption of the body was declared to be complete. When he visited the spot 

 he found in the centre of the ashes the heads of two femora entire, but completely 

 calcined, and a mass of incinerated matter, as large as two fists, said to be the remains 

 of the liver. Thus 20 maunds, or 1600 lbs. of wood and straw, and two bottles of oil, 

 were required to consume a healthy body, and 8£ hours more required for the opera- 

 tion, which even then was virtually incomplete. Here, however, five times the need- 

 ful quantity of fuel was consumed.' 



