500 



On an Urn found on the Galla-law near Luffness, East 

 Lothian. By James Hardy. Plate I. fig. 2. 



At the Aberlady meeting Mr George H. Stevens, Gullane, 

 exhibited a small earthenware Urn, discovered January, 1880, 

 by John Purves, a workman, in a quarry on the rise of Luffness 

 Links, towards Gullane Hill. It is what is called a "food 

 vessel," intended to hold provisions for the spirit-body of theinmate 

 of that particular grave in the next world. It resembles a small 

 flower pot. Its height is 4f inches, diameter across the top 5^ 

 inches, and at the bottom 3 inches. It has a well marked lip, 

 ornamented with 4 circular lines of impressions of plaited thong 

 or rush ; the ornament of the upper part of the urn on the out- 

 side consists of 10 similar lines, and then a well-marked smooth 

 rib ; beneath this, on the diminishing portion, is a band of up- 

 right strokes, which are from ^ to ^ of an inch in length. 



In the same locality Mr Stevens picked up a fragment of a 

 diminutive vessel of Samian ware, showing intercourse with 

 Poman occupants. He also found several bits of a cinerary urn. 

 On the same rocky "knowe" — the "Galla-law" — there were 

 found about eighty years ago, gold ornaments, including a 

 bracelet "of the appearance of the brass handles of an old- 

 fashioned chest of drawers," i.e. a Penannular gold ring or 

 armlet. Mr Stevens writes that " to the north-east of the quarry 

 is a spring of water called ' Brand's Well,' the only one on the 

 hill ; and possibly a Holy Well endowed at Gullane by David I., 

 when he endowed one at Garvald. Still more to the north-east 

 on the same line, is a large number of boulders scattered on the 

 hill- side which may have been a sacerdotal and a judicial circle, 

 or Mote-hill." 



There are likewise various other examples of ancient inter- 

 ments and reminders of old British occupancy on that line of 

 coast. The most elaborately ornamented sepulchral urn hitherto 

 discovered in North Britain was obtained in 1802, at Luffness on 

 the estate of George W. Hope, Esq., and was long kept at Luff- 

 ness, till it was irretrievably fractured by the mis-management 

 of a servant. It had fortunately been figured and described in 

 the " Archaeological Journal," vol. xv., p. 287. There is also a 

 figure of it in the illustrated Catalogue of the Meeting of the 

 Archaeological Institute, held in Edinburgh, July, 185G, p. 37. 

 The height of the original was 5J inches ; diameter of the 



