ROYAL IRISH ACADEMY. 
215 
First, however, let me say that the Baron has fallen into the very 
common error of supposing that the small wedge-like hatchets, com¬ 
monly called Celts, are peculiar to the Keltic race. The name Celt 
ordinarily given to them has propagated this error ; hut that word is 
only the Latin Celtes , or Celtis (from ccelare, to carve or engrave), which 
occurs in the Latin Yulgate, Job, xix. 24 ;—“ Quis mihi det ut [ser- 
mones mei] exarentur in libro stylo ferreo, et plumbi lamina vel Celts 
sculpantur in silice ?”* But the name of the Keltic family of nations, 
in its correct orthography, is wholly different, 5 a01 bhel, TaXarai, 
Gadelii. 
Thus M. de Bonstetten records it as a fact which he appears to think 
inconsistent with his own very just conclusion of the non-Celtic origin 
of the tombs, of which I shall speak presently, that M. Muller, ofMdau, 
in the year 1848, opened a tomb on the hill of JoUntont , near Anet, in 
which were found a small bronze figure, “ dont la costume bizarre n’a 
rien de romain;” a stone hammer, “et une de ces haches, ou coins en 
bronze communement appeles haches celtiques.” If continental anti¬ 
quaries call these implements “ haches celtiques/’ it is evident that they 
have fallen into the error of imagining that the name Celt (i. e. Celtes, 
a chisel) is connected with the Celtic, or more properly Keltic, family 
of the human race. 
The opinion of M. de Bonstetten, in which I entirely concur, is, that 
the tombs opened by him in the neighbourhood of Anet are to be as¬ 
signed to a period subsequent to the introduction of Christianity into that 
country, that is, subsequent to the latter part of the sixth century ; and 
I am inclined to believe them, for the reasons I shall give presently, 
very much later. 
The real importance of the Baron de Bonstetten’s discoveries, in re¬ 
ference to the science of Archaeology, does not appear to have been fully 
perceived by himself. But I shall be better able to explain what I 
mean when I have given you a short account of the results of his inves¬ 
tigations. 
He found among the ruins of the ancient Chateau of Fcenis, about a 
league to the north of the village of Anet, near Berne, ten large tumuli, 
erected upon a wooded hill which overlooks Anet, and from which there 
is a view of the lakes of Morat, JSTeuchatel, Bienne, and of the chain of 
mountains from the Titlis to Mont Blanc. Six of these mounds were 
ranged at some feet from each other, on the crest of the hill, in a line 
running from east to west. The remaining four formed a semicircle at 
the end of this line. The mounds varied in dimensions from 6 to 15 feet 
in height, and 40 to 60 paces in circumference. 
The first circumstance noticed by the Baron, which distinguishes 
these tombs from the Celtic and British sepulchral monuments of the 
* It is curious that some MSB. and printed editions of the Yulgate (as that of Rob. 
Stephanas, Paris. 1528) have “ vel certe sculpantur,” a reading which is, no doubt, the 
true one, as being in accordance with the LXX. and with the Hebrew. 
