86 TUMULI MENTIONED 



estimated that more than two thousand still remain ; and in 

 Denmark they are even more abundant ; they are found 

 all over Europe, from the shores of the Atlantic to the 

 Oural mountains ; in Asia they are scattered over the great 

 steppes, from the borders of Russia to the Pacific Ocean, 

 and from the plains of Siberia to those of Hindostan; in 

 America we are told that they are to be numbered by thou- 

 sands and tens of thousands ; nor are they wanting in Africa, 

 where the Pyramids themselves exhibit the most magnificent 

 development of the same idea ; so that the whole world is 

 studded with these burial places of the dead. The Crom- 

 lechs, Dolmens, and Cistvaens (fig. 99), are now generally 

 regarded as sepulchral, and the great number in which these 

 ancient burial places occur is very suggestive of their an- 

 tiquity, since the labor involved in the construction of 

 a tumulus would not be undertaken except in honor of chiefs 

 and great men. Many of them are small, but some are 

 very large ; Silbury Hill, the highest in Great Britain, 

 has a height of one hundred and seventy feet; but though 

 evidently artificial, there is great doubt whether it is 

 sepulchral. 



Mr. Bateman, in the Preface to his second work,* has 

 collected together the most ancient allusions to burial cere- 

 monies, and we see that "Mound-burial" was prevalent in 

 the earliest times of which we have any historical record. 

 Achan and his whole family were stoned with stones and 

 burned with fire, after which we are told that Israel " raised 

 over him a great heap of stones unto this day. So the Lord 

 turned from the fierceness of his anger." Again, the king 

 of Ai was buried under a great heap of stones. 



According to Diodorus, Semiramis, the widow of Ninus, 

 buried her husband within the precincts of the palace, and 

 raised over him a great mound of earth. Some of the 

 Ten Years' Diggings in Celtic and Saxon Gravehills. 



