EARLY MAN 
in height. The illustration, given with this section, of two found at 
Old Parks, Kirkoswald, gives a good idea of a common form of incense 
cup; but there are numerous varieties. A singular thing is that they 
are sometimes perforated with holes, and that their ornamentation is 
continued over the bottom, as if they were meant to be viewed from 
below. Hence some have considered that the holes were for passing 
cords through for suspension, and that the incense cups were lamps, but 
no trace of such use has been discovered upon any incense cup. Others 
have suggested they were small urns to receive the ashes of infants, 
sacrificed perhaps at the death of their mothers, so that the smaller urns 
might be placed within those containing the ashes of their parents. But 
Canon Greenwell has scarcely ever found bones placed within them 
except accidentally. The Canon also dismisses as improbable the idea 
that they were used for the purpose of fumigation, either to conceal the 
odour of the burning body, or as part of a religious ceremony. He 
regards as a probable suggestion that put forward by the Hon. W. 
Stanley and Mr. Albert Way, viz., 
that they were ‘chafers,’ ‘for conveying fire, whether a small quantity of glowing 
embers or some inflammable substance in which a latent spark might for awhile be 
retained, such for instance as touchwood, fungus or the like, with which to kindle the 
funeral fire (British Barrows, p. 81). 
The ‘food vessels’ and the ‘drinking cups’ appear to have been 
the receptacles of some sort of provision for the departed in the new 
world to which he or she was bound. The food vessels are found both 
with burials by inhumation and after cremation, but more commonly 
with burials by inhumation. They generally contain a substance or a 
deposit, which analysis shows to be the remains of some animal or 
vegetable matter. They vary in height from 3 to 8 inches according 
to Canon Greenwell, but Mr. Llewellyn Jewitt says their average 
height is from 4 to 6 inches. ‘The Canon also says that they are more 
diversified in shape than those of any other class. They occasionally 
have little projecting knobs or ears on their shoulders, sometimes 
pierced as for suspension by means of a string, sometimes mere 
ornamental survivals. Sometimes they have feet, four in number, and 
some have even been found with lids of pottery. Drinking vessels 
vary in size from 5 to 10 inches; there are two principal shapes; the 
bottom of both is more or less globular, in one class the upper part 
widens to the mouth in a straight line, in the other in an easy curve. 
The drinking cups are usually, according to Canon Greenwell, thin in 
the walls, very neatly made of fine paste, and much better fired than any 
other class of sepulchral pottery. 
The recorded occurrences of food or drinking vessels in Cumberland 
are very few ; food vessels were found with the burials after cremation of 
the find at Garlands mentioned before. A cist with a skeleton in it and 
an urn was found near Edmond Castle Lodge.’ The urn was broken and 
1 Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archeological Society, 
vol. vi. p. 470. 
237 
