124 On the Ancient Use of a small Clay Cup, 



Briton, while the stone pots of Orkney and probably the hollowed 

 stone of Aberdeenshire, having no means of suspension, were 

 carried in the lappet of the savages hide-cloak, or stood in his 

 habitation to be employed in the use for which they were fabricated. 

 I am aware that this opinion which I have advanced concerning 

 the ancient use of the so-called incense cups conflicts with the 

 ideas of the eminent archaeologists Sir John Lubbock and Professor 

 Daniel Wilson, both of whom consider those vessels to have been 

 employed as lamps, the latter writer intimating that the perforations 

 were made to admit of their suspension. The specimens however, 

 to which the author of the "Pre-historic Annals of Scotland" refers 

 in that valuable work, page 424, are in the same museum which 

 contains the stone pots from Orkney, and were with them submitted 

 to my inspection by the curator. Of the three clay cups thus 

 referred to, and represented in Professor Wilson's work, plate vi., 

 fig. 78, the one found at Rolandshay, Orkney, has four perforations, 

 one pair opposite to the other pair at the bottom. These holes, 

 which would, according to my supposition about the use of such a 

 vessel, serve very well for the insertion of ligaments that might 

 lap over the outside of the cup, and suspend it and its contents 

 safely, provided that what it held was of the consistency of pigment, 

 would certainly allow oil or blubber, which it has been supposed 

 was at that time used to nourish the flame of the wick, to exude. 

 The cup found near Dunbar I observed to have only one pair of 

 holes on one side, and so to be incapable of suspension as a lighted 

 lamp by means of a ligament drawn through them. By this 

 instrumentality however the vessel might have been hung up 

 empty or full, if its contents were caked together and solid as pigment 

 would probably be when dry ; or if a small osier twig had been 

 bent and inserted into the holes to serve as a handle, the owner 

 might with convenience have mingled and carried paint in the 

 vessel. The third clay cup figured in Professor Wilson's work, 

 found at Old Penrith, Cumberland, has one pair of holes together 

 at the bottom, and is therefore open to both the objections already 

 stated against its use as a lighted lamp. On the other hand it 

 might have been employed as a pigment pot, and by means of a 



