1898-99.] Sir W. Turner on Sculptured Skulls, New Guinea . 559 
more or less conventional rendering of a natural object, that which 
it most closely represents is a star-fish. We know from the 
dredgings of H.M.S. “ Challenger ” that several species of 
Asteroidea frequent Torres Strait and the adjoining seas. 
Group 3. Although only one skull belonged to this group, it 
was in some respects the most interesting of the series, for it 
showed a decoration which bore a certain resemblance to what is 
sometimes called the spectacle ornament.* This design has been 
described as a double disc or circle, connected by lines more or 
less parallel, and is one of the best known sculptures on crosses 
and other carved stones in Scotland, which date from the early 
Christian period of Celtic art. 
In the Hew Guinea skull the ornament was not arranged across 
the forehead, but in the longitudinal direction of the frontal arc, 
so that one disc was above the other. The lower circle was placed 
33 mm. above the nasion. It was 18 mm. in diameter, and enclosed 
a smaller circle, 8 mm. in diameter (fig. 8). From the upper part 
of its circumference two almost parallel lines, 19 mm. long, passed 
upwards to join the upper circle, which had almost the same 
diameter as the lower. It presented, however, this peculiarity, that 
at the upper part the boundary line from the opposite sides of the 
circle did not become continuous, so that the circle was incomplete 
above, but it enclosed a smaller circle. The ornament was sur- 
rounded by a wavy line, and where it was opposite the parallel 
lines connecting the two discs, straight incised lines from 4 to 6 
mm. long were directed inwards. External to this another wavy 
line enclosed the whole design. The outermost line had been cut 
across the glabella and supra-orbital ridges below, whilst above it 
was involuted, passed through the interval between the incomplete 
parts of the upper circle, and was continued into the boundary 
line of the enclosed smaller circle. Within the external boundary 
line and immediately above the glabella and supra-orbital ridges 
a wavy incised line followed the outline of the ridges, and five 
short incised lines were directed upwards from it. 
The collection described by Messrs Dorsey and Holmes did not 
* Figured in Wilson’s Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, Stewart’s Sculptured 
Stones, and Joseph Anderson’s Scotland in Early Christian Times, 2nd 
Series. 
