494 
necting fragments might be again recognized and restored; 
but that these had been fragments only when originally- 
deposited with the bodies. Again, the flint chippings appear 
somewhat obscure as to their use. Flint implements, or 
articles of personal decoration, have a history attached to 
them, as connected probably with the former owner with 
whom they are interred. 
In the tomb of Mithridates, in the neighbourhood of 
Kertch, which was in a huge tumulus 120 feet in height 
by 150 feet in diameter, the skeleton of the king was dis- 
covered, with various golden ornaments, his sword, &c, and a 
multitude of little sharp flints were lying at the feet heaped 
up in a pyramidal form.* 
There seems to be an allusion to this custom in the Sep- 
tuagint Version of the book of Joshua, chapter 24, verse 31, 
for the following translation of which I am indebted to the 
Rev. Canon Atlay, D.D., vicar of Leeds, which reads thus : 
" There they placed with him, in the tomb where they buried 
him, the stone knives with which he circumcised the children 
of Israel, at Grilgal, when he brought them out of Egypt, as 
the Lord commanded them; and there they are until this 
very day." 
Now although this passage does not appear in the present 
Masoretic text of the book of Joshua, and may therefore 
be presumed as an addition to the original text, it 
matters little, as it clearly proves that the practice of 
interring stone implements with the dead was known at 
least 300 years before Christ. As instances like the above 
are not of unfrequent occurrence, both in Britain as well as 
on the Continent, they have had evidently a peculiar object. 
The Rev. Wm. Greenwell, of Durham, in an interesting 
account of the opening of some barrows at Ford, in Northum- 
* See Journal of the Archaeological Association, vol. xiii., p. 299. 
