Notes on Urns and Cists found at Amble. 529 



that the urn found was not a " Food-vessel," but a " Drinking- 

 Cup." Three at least of Mr Thompson's series are of the 

 *' Food-vessel," type. Mr Dunn's plate is badly drawn, and on 

 comparison with the chromo-lithograph of the illustrated 

 Catalogue of the Alnwick Castle Museum, far from exact. It is 

 Plate 14a, fig. 1, of that Catalogue, described at p. 12, and is 

 No. 19 in the series. 



The circumstances detailed in Mr Dunn's paper are consider- 

 ably different from the much more important recent overturn 

 of another cemetery in the immediate vicinity ; apparently those 

 of the first belong to a prior age. To bring the facts together I 

 shall extract some particulars from Mr Dunn's notes, which are 

 not readily accessible to the majority of the Club's members. 

 This first discovery happened in the middle of April, 1858, 



" About 50 yards N. E. of the CKif-House, Amble, and about 20 yards 

 from the end of what is called Warkworth South Pier, the pilots came 

 upon a long upright stone, standing out of the shale to the height of 12 or 

 14 inches, which had been laid bare by the recent heavy gales, but which, 

 from its rude appearance, did not afford the idea of anything beyond a 

 mere accidental tilting. Alongside this upright stone was a large un- 

 wrought slab, which, on being raised, was found to be the covering of a 

 cist or sepulchral chamber, containing a perfect skeleton. The figure 

 was lying on its left side, with the head to the south-west, having the 

 knees much doubled, and with the right arm thrown back. By its side 

 stood an urn of unbaked clay. It contained a small quantity of dark 

 earth." 



" The cist or chamber containing the remains was composed of four 

 slabs, inserted edgeways in a cavity which appeared to have been dug out 

 of the friable shale which lies upon the harder rock in this locality. It 

 ranged S. E. and N. W. and measured as follows : — Depth 18|- inches ; 

 width 26 inches ; length at bottom, 4 feet, at top, 3 feet 4 inches ; the 

 difference between the top and bottom measurement being accounted for 

 by the shrinking of the ends. The cavity in the shale was much larger 

 than the cist, and the space between the slabs and the shale was closely 

 filled in with stones, roughly broken, commingled with earth and larger 

 stones. The side slabs projected somewhat beyond the ends. The bottom 

 of the cist was covered, to the depth of about half an inch, with dark, 

 unctuous mould." 



"Amongst the rubbish composing the filling up of the space above 

 mentioned, was found an angular piece of silex, probably an unfinished 

 arrow-head ; and in the south-west corner of the cist lay a large, smooth, 

 cobble stone (different from any that one may pick up on the neighbour- 

 ing shore), which, when considered in conjunction with the flint flake, the 

 imagination may easily construe into the club of this ancient denizen of 



2o 



