SEPULCHRAL MOUNDS, ETC., OF THE ANCIENT WORLD. ]19 



The burial-mounds of the ancient Britons, both of the Celtic and Saxon periods, 

 evince similar practices on the part of their builders. For obvious reasons, the 

 mounds of the United States have oftenest been compared to these ; and, upon the 

 narrow basis of certain coincidences in structure, a common origin has been 

 ascribed to both. This circumstance, in connection with others, justifies a more 

 detailed, notice of the British barrows than would otherwise be required. They 

 have been systematically investigated by many learned and indefatigable antiqua- 

 rians, the result of whose inquiries, so far as they relate to the modes of interment 

 practised by the ancient inhabitants, are compendiously presented by Sir R. C. 

 Hoare, in his splendid work, entitled " Ancient Wiltshire." 



" Four distinct modes of interment were practised by the ancient Britons : — 



1. The body placed genei-ally in a cist, with its legs bent up towards the head, 

 and frequently accompanied by daggers of brass, drinking cups, &c. 



2. The body extended at full length, accompanied by articles of brass and iron, 

 such as spear-heads, lances, swords, and the umbos of shields. 



3. Interment by incremation : when the body of the deceased was consumed by 

 fire, and the bones and ashes deposited either on the floor of the barrow, or in a 

 cist cut in the chalk. This is called a simple interment. 



4. Urn burial, with incremation, when the body was burned, and the bones and 

 ashes deposited within a sepulchral urn, which is generally, though not in all cases, 

 reversed. By the web of cloth still remaining in some instances, it appears that 

 the ashes were wrapped up in a linen cloth and fastened by a small brass pin, 

 several of which, intermixed with the ashes, have been found. 



" Of these modes of burial, the first was probably most primitive : articles of 

 iron bespeak a later period ; and it is further probable, that the two modes of 

 burying the body by fire were adopted at one and the same period. We have 

 instances where the body has been enclosed in a wooden chest, riveted with brass, 

 or within the more simple covering of an unbarked timber tree." 



A very remarkable resemblance in form exists between the various kinds of 

 British barrows and the mounds of this country ; in this respect, indeed, there is 

 scarcely a perceptible diflference between them. The curious will find in Hoare's 

 Ancient Wiltshire, 1812 ; Stukeley's Stonehenge and Itinerarium ; Rowland's 

 Antiquities of Anglesey, 1723 ; Camden's Britannia ; Grose's Antiquities ; in 

 the British Archseologia, thirty volumes, quarto; Higgins's Celtic Druids, 1827; 

 Borlase's Ancient Cornwall ; and in numerous other works upon the subject, 

 abundant illustrations of the correctness of this observation. Sir R. C. Hoare has 

 attempted to make the variety of form exhibited by these barrows the basis of a 

 classification, distinguishing the ei-as of their construction, and even the caste and 

 condition of the dead which they cover. It is probable that some varieties of form 

 may have predominated at a particular period, and that the dimensions of the 

 barrow may tave, in some degree, corresponded with the rank of the dead. Fur- 

 ther than this, however, the theory is not well sustained. Sir Richard enumerates 

 not less than eleven kinds of tumuli, distinguished from each other by their form, 

 viz : — 



1 St. The Long Barroiv, which resembles half an egg, cut lengthwise, one enjj 



