403 



the artist's having taken advantage of a natural prominence of the stone 



as a step towards his design. 



The natural fracture of the headstone has also, to some extent, been 

 worked into the plume-like design ; and in this respect these particular 

 sculptures, which are certainly parcel of the original work, differ from 

 the incised characters on the stones, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. In these latter 

 the rough portions of the surface have been avoided, and all the characters 

 appear to have been designed iiTespectively of any accidental configu- 

 ration. 



The absence of that barbaric species of ornamentation found on the 

 stones of the often described neighbouring monument of Gavrinis, and 

 the adoption of representations of definite objects, would lead to the 

 inference that the Mane Nelud is of later date ; while the comparative 

 rudeness of the work would place it prior, in point of antiquity, to some 

 of the adjoining monuments of the Locmariaker group. The best 

 sculptured and most elegant of these is that popularly called the 

 Merchants' Talle, on the under surface of which, forming the ceiling 

 of the chamber, is the well-known sculptured representation of a stone 

 hatchet. It has not, however, been hitherto known that in connexion 

 with the hatchet there appears a plume-like ornament, and that on the 

 same stone there exists the sculptured representation of what appeared 

 to the writer to be a plough. 



This would leave the Mane Nelud, at all events, anterior to a time 

 when, although the art of agriculture may have been introduced, the 

 stone hatchet continued to be the principal weapon of a person of dis- 

 tinction ; so that, if the characters inscribed on the stones of the Mane 

 Nelud be coeval with the monument, they will necessarily carry us back 

 to a very remote epoch in the history of man. 



The writer examined the inscribed stones carefully to see whether 

 the characters were anywhere overlapped by other parts of the work, 

 or whether there existed any other indications of the sculptures having 

 been executed before the stones were built in, such as may be observed in 

 the analogous structures of J^ew Grange, in this country, and of Gavrinis; 

 but found nothing conclusive on this point. The occurrence, how- 

 ever, on one of the inscribed groups QSo. 5) of the triangular object, 

 conventionally called a celt, which figures prominently in the cotempo- 

 raneous decorations of Gavrinis, strongly aids the presumption that the 

 inscriptions are coeval with the rest of the work. 



The writer does not enter on any consideration of the meaning or 

 phonetic significance of the characters, desiring to submit the facts 

 and objects, as they appeared, to the judgment of the Academy, and of 

 those scholars to whose notice they will be brought by publication in 

 the ProceediDgs." 



