46 ARBOR LOW EXCAVATIONS IN T9OT AND T902. 



12 feet (3-65 m.). These dimensions have been much 

 exaggerated by successive writers on Arbor Low* ; and as 

 recently as 1900 the average height of the vallum has been 

 recorded as 16 feet (4"88 m.) above the surrounding level, t 



Judging from those portions of the fosse already re-excavated, 

 the material obtained from the fosse when it was first excavated 

 was not enough to complete the construction of the vallum. 

 The confines of the vallum are bounded at various points by 

 ten small governmental stones, indicated by small black squares 

 on the plan. The continuation of the ditch and rampart is 

 interrupted on the north-west and south-east by the entrance 

 causeways, which are not in line with the central group of 

 stones. The causeways are on the same general level as the 

 area occupied by the megaliths and the surrounding land. 

 The circumference of the rampart, including the entrances, is 

 about 808 feet (246 m.). 



The vallum is joined on the south-west by a slightly raised 

 bank about \\ foot (457 cm.) high, and an almost imper- 

 ceptible "silted-up" ditch, which run for some distance in a 

 southerly direction, and about which there have been various 

 theories. Some writers have connected this so-called " serpent " 

 with Gib Hill, a tumulus at a distance of 1,043 f ee * (3 T 8 rn.)| 

 from the centre of Arbor Low (plate I.). Gib Hill was un- 

 successfully dug into about 181 2, and again by William 

 Bateman in 1824, § when a few stone implements appear to 

 have been found. In January, 1848, Thomas Bateman made 

 a more thorough examination of the mound, when he discovered 

 a cist, the top stone of which was only 18 inches (45-7 cm.) 

 from the apex of the tumulus, containing a cremated interment 

 in a small urn of Bronze Age type. || 



On the south-east, adjoining the external face of the vallum 

 and partly resting on it, a tumulus stands, the summit jh feet 



* Archaologia, vii., 142. 



t Journal, British Archaeological Association, N.S. vi., 129. 



% According to my tape measurement. 



§ Bateman's Vestiges of 'the Antiquities of Derbyshire, 31. 



I! Bateman's Ten Years' Diggings, 17-20. 



