Burial Customs of Ancient Ireland. 45 



a fair idea of the manners and customs of the Egyptians from 

 those histories pictured on their tombs. They believed that 

 after a lapse of many thousands of years their souls would come 

 to reinhabit their bodies if the latter were preserved entire. 

 Herodotus relates of them that at their principal feasts, when 

 they began to taste the wine after supper, a person appointed 

 to that end carried about in a coffin the image of a dead man 

 carved in wood, and representing the original in colour and 

 shape, and pronounced these words to everyone distinctly : — 

 " Look upon this, then drink and rejoice, for thou shalt be as 

 this is." 



In Irish tombs pictures are not found, as in the Egyptian, 

 though they are ornamented with symbolic carvings, the key 

 to all of which has not been clearly denned. Occasionally 

 there are found in tombs implements and ornaments which 

 enable us to form some idea of the civilisation that had been 

 attained to at the period of the interment. Implements of 

 bone, rough flint, and unpolished stone weapons are found in 

 graves of the earliest period. Polished flints, stones, and beads 

 are found in tombs of a more recent date, whilst bronze 

 weapons and ornaments are discovered in tombs of a still later 

 period. Bronze weapons and ornaments also show various 

 stages of development, from the plain bronze celt to the 

 beautifully-finished socketed spear or sword, inlaid with gold or 

 precious stones. A great development in art is observable 

 from the rudely- carved bone ornaments to the torques and 

 fibulae, in bronze, silver, and gold, decorated with those charm- 

 ing interlacing patterns, so minutely carved as to require a 

 glass of some power to detect all the delicate tracery with 

 which they are so profusely embellished. From an examina- 

 tion and comparison of implements and ornaments found in the 

 tombs, we may form a fair estimate of the civilisation that was 

 contemporary with these objects. The antiquarians of future 

 ages, however, will not derive much information from the tombs 

 of the present time. The brass plates and mountings of coffins 



