216 MORTIMER : OPENING OF THE TUMULUS " HOWE HILL," DUGGLEBY. 
Owing to the sloping nature of the ground on which Duggleby 
Howe had been raised, its elevation appeared much greater viewed 
from the north side than it did from the south. Its diameter at the 
base was about 125 feet, and its flat top was 47 feet in diameter. By- 
drawing a line east and west across the centre of the barrow its ele- 
vation was found to be 22 feet on the east side, and 19 feet on the 
west. In all probability this mound was originally 8 to 10 feet 
higher, measured along the same line. It is said that the Duggleby 
barrow was opened by the late Rev. Christopher Sykes,* brother to 
the late Sir Tatton Sykes, of Sledmere, not more recently than the 
year 1798 or 1799, as he left Sledmere in 1800. I believe there is 
no written record of this opening, and there is no tradition of any 
thing having been found. 
On July 21st, 1890, a commencement was made by the writer 
and a number of experienced workmen. An area of 40 feet square 
over the centre of the barrow, and a portion of the east side of the 
mound, were removed. From the central area and mainly from the 
rilled in excavation (which was small for so large a mound, and did 
not reach within 12 feet of the base of the mound), made by the 
previous explorers, the following articles of iron were found, namely, 
a few nails and flat bits much corroded, and one side of a pair of 
small shears, probably Anglo-Saxon ; there was also the pointed end of 
a bone pin, and a piece of bone apparently from the side of an 
Anglo-Saxon comb. 
Twenty -five flint flakes were found, some of which were variously 
shaped by secondary chipping ; a punch-shaped tool 2^- inches 
long ; a portion of a toothed double-edged flake saw ; and a 
sharply-pointed triangular knife 2 inches in length, and 1 inch broad 
at the base, made of a very thin flake of light-coloured native 
* Mr. Sykes explored other barrows in the neighbourhood ; and it is 
recorded, in the preface to the eighth edition of the hand-book of the Anti- 
quities in the York Museum, that the Rev. Christopher Sykes was the first 
donor to the Museum. The gift was a small number of Anglo-Saxon cinerary 
urns from a cemetery on the Wolds. 
A short paper, by Mr. Sykes, on the finding of a bracelet on the wrist of 
a skeleton found by the road side in Wetwang field, was read May 15th, 1794, 
at a meeting of the society of Antiquaries of London. It is therefore to be 
hoped that some account of Mr. Sykes' explorations of the Duggleby and 
other barrows may yet exist. 
