TIUNSACTIONS OF SECTION' H. 769 



7. On a Survival of certain Pagan Sepulchral Symbols on Early Christian 

 Monuments in Ireland. By P, J. O'Reilly. 



The •writer points to the existence of cup-marks and inscribed single circles and 

 concentric circles in the earlier, and cup-and-concentric circles in the later, of the 

 Irish pagan tumuli, and presents photographs of a series of Christian sepulchral 

 monuments found in the cemeteries of ancient churches, all of which were pro- 

 bably founded in or before the seventh century, and are situated in the limited 

 area of the half-barony of Rathdown, Co. Dublin. These monuments include cup- 

 ped stones at Dalkey, Tully, and Rathmichael; stones presenting a cupped medial- 

 band design at Rathmichael and Killegar ; others at Cruagh and Rathmichael 

 bearing cup-and-concentric-circle designs ; others at Killegar and Rathmichael 

 exhibiting the latter design in combination with a radiating triple-line design ; 

 a cupped ' fish-bone ' design at Rathmichael ; and combinations of the cup-and- 

 concentric-circle and ' fish-bone ' designs at Ballyman and Tully. Among facts 

 stated which show that these Rathdown designs were wrought at a later period 

 than their pagan prototypes, and that the stones bearing them are not pagan 

 sepulchral monuments utilised as memorials of Christian dead, is the existence on 

 one at Dalkey of a symmetric combination of two cup-and-concentric-circle groups 

 and four single circles with an incised cupped Irish wheel-cross that is undeniably 

 of Christian origin and contemporaneous with the remainder of the design, which 

 forms a valuable link between the pagan-like patterns of the earlier members of 

 the series and the free standing crosses of the district, four of which bear the 

 single-circle symbol. 



8. Report on the Excavations in the Roman Fort at Gellygaer. 

 See Reports, p. 450. 



9. Report on the Excavations of the Roman City at Silchester. 

 See Reports, p. 453. 



10. On the Khami Ruins, near Bulawayo, Rhodesia. 

 By F. P. Mennell, F.G.S., Curator of the Rhodesia Museum. 



All over the territory between the Zambesi and the Limpopo, now known as 

 Southern Rhodesia, are numerous structures which testify to a former occupation 

 of the country by a race far more advanced in the arts than the Bantu tribes, who 

 are shown by Arab records to have inhabited the country for fully two thousand 

 years. The Khami Ruins, situated twelve miles from Bulawayo, may be taken as 

 typical. They consist of about a dozen separate structures showing the usual 

 mortarless walls faced with carefully squared granite blocks about twice as large 

 as an ordinary brick. These walls are about 3 feet thick, and rise perpendicu- 

 larly without any batter, as a rule, to heights of 10 to 20 feet or more. The 

 exterior walls roughly conform to the shape of the ground available, or are more 

 or less circular, but the interior ones ramify about in a most intricate manner. 

 The principal ruin has three sets of walls at different levels ; and as the spaces 

 which they enclose have become filled with debris, they give the hill on which 

 they are built a terraced appearance. The main entrance to this structure has 

 square ends to the walls on either side, and recent excavations have revealed the 

 fact that a series of stone-built steps lead up to it from the foot of the slope. In 

 other cases the walls are rounded off at the entrances, and rounded buttresses 

 support them at times. Other devices in the way of decoration are the ' chess- 

 board ' and ' herring-bone ' patterns, formed by varying the positions of the facing 

 blocks and the introduction of dark-coloured dolerite blocks to contrast with the 

 granite. 



It has been stated that these structures could not have been roofed in, and in 

 only one instance (Impateni) out of many hundreds is a covered entrance known 



1902. 3 o 



