136 British Urns found at Hoprig. By Jas. Hardy. 



found to overlie one of the drains that here traversed the field, 

 and possibly it had been broken into by the drainer some thirty 

 or forty years ago. If there was any cist or protecting stones, 

 they had been removed. Mr Smith has cemented the fragments 

 together, and has drawn the design. He estimates the 

 dimensions of the original as 8 inches in height, and 6 in 

 diameter. It was of a redder clay than the first. It was out- 

 side the cairn area, and may have had a mound of its own super- 

 imposed over it. 



The great slab at the bottom of the pit near the summit of the 

 area remained in position till April 25th, when Mr Smith assist- 

 ed by his steward raised it. This slab was 40 inches long, 3 1 

 broad, and 7 inches thick. It was of a yellowish sandstone of 

 the Calciferous or Tuedian series. Instead of being a bottom 

 slab, it was a cist cover, and a very neatly formed cist lying E. 

 and W., almost shaped like a small coffin, and of unequal 

 breadth, was discovered beneath it, the narrower end being at 

 the W. One of the enclosing stones was a greenstone ; the rest 

 were sandstones ; one of the yellow sandstones had been taken 

 from the bottom of a burn, as the soft portions had been hollow- 

 ed out by the action of running water. Inside, the cist was 33 

 inches long, 14 inches at the narrow end, and 21 at the broad 

 one ; 1 3 inches deep. It was placed in a casing of boulder stones 

 like the superincumbent pit. It was filled with coarse sand. 

 There were two small urns filled with sand placed in two of the 

 corners obliquely to each other, one a very beautiful drinking 

 cup, the other a food vessel, both standing upright. (Plate I. figs. 

 3,4.) No remains of a skeleton survived. If it ever was there, 

 the calcareous matter had become dissipated among the sand ; and 

 in so narrow a space the body would be a doubled up one. 

 Possibly an immolation of wife or slave had left its traces among 

 the icinerated bones visible in the upper compartment. There was 

 a slab at the base of all, of a brittle sandstone such as is quarried 

 in Hoprig dean at the present time. The depth of the two 

 compartments combined was 6 feet. I noticed that a thistle root 

 ( Carduus arvensis) had nearly crept down the entire depth. 



The figures which are from photos give a better idea of the urns 

 than any description. Mr Smith has exemplified them on a 

 magnified scale in some beautiful drawings. The elegant Drinking 

 Cup, Plate III., has the two upperseriesof transverse lines, 10 and 

 4, deeply fluted and entire ; the under series of these, 1, 4, 5, and 



