206 RECENT ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES IN CORNWALL. 



they were used for fumigation whilst the human body was 

 undergoing cremation, or were charged with oil and wick as 

 funeral lamps for lighting the pyre, or were intended to hold 

 infants' relics or those of birds, or were little libation bowls 

 through which some liquor was poured, — small streams issuing 

 from the side holes,* or whether they were made for some quite 

 different purpose, has often been discussed but not yet decided. 

 (D). The knife-dagger, with 2 rivets, found in the urn, is 

 a blade of brightly polished bronze, encrusted on both faces, to 

 some extent, with serugo (verdigris). It is beautifully cast, of 

 tapering flamboyant form, leaf -like towards the point, and is 

 relieved from flatness by a duplex midrib and bevelled edges, — 

 the latter are very sharp. It is not tanged. The mark of the 

 distal extremity of its handle can be seen over and between 

 its rivet-holes. The line is of the usual form, viz. : horizontal 

 with semicircular dip in the centre. 



Four inches of blade projected beyond the handle, which 

 must have been flat and wide where riveted, but has perished. 

 The blade is 4-| inches long. 



,, ,, 1J- ,, broad at base, across the rivet-holes. 



,, ,, % ,, ,, near the tip. 



Each rivet is J_ , , long (equal to thickness of flat haft) . 

 ,, ,, i ,, thick (each end being spread wider 



by hammering). 

 Bronze knife-daggers of this class have been found in 

 several places in Cornwall, e.g., at Angrowse in Mullion (in a 

 chevroned urn), at Benallack near Par, &c. ;f others, (of which 

 some are of exactly the same size as that under consideration), 

 in a great many other places, j 



(E). The bronze awl, or pin, much corroded and slightly 

 curved, also found in the urn, has been broken in two, but was 

 in one length when first I saw it. 



* Amongst the Romans (from whom, Borlase thinks, the Britons learned 

 cremation), " when the pile was burnt down the embers were slaked with wine, 

 and the bones and ashes of the deceased were gathered by the nearest relations, 

 who sprinkled them with perfumes and placed them in a vessel called uma." 

 (Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities, "Punus.") 



fNsenia, pp. 5, 236. 



JSee Archasologia, Vol. 43, p. 448, &c, and many other works. 



