Page:Archaeologia volume 38 part 1.djvu/218

 190 Ancient Pelasgic and Latian Vases Signer Carnevali to compare these last found fragments with the vases and other objects previously discovered, and the comparison led them to the unanimous conclusion that the materials of both were the same. To this statement attestations are added by several other proprietors, affirming that similar disco- veries had been previously made by them near the same spot at former periods, and further attestations follow from various workmen and masons to the fact that on several occasions iron nails and fragments of iron had been found by them in the substance of the rock itself. As to the truth of these statements Visconti expresses no doubt; and I have sought the opinion of some of our most eminent geologists as to their probability, and I am now authorised by Professors Owen, Ramsey, Quekett, and Hunt, to say that, under certain conditions of percolation and admixture of cretaceous matter, it is neither impossible nor improbable that the component parts of the Peperino rock might harden into stone within a period much less than that to which this curious ware may with propriety be assigned, an illustration of this being given by Professor Ovon in the instance of the Guadaloupe skeleton in the British Museum, the rock in which it is imbedded not requiring in the Professor's opinion many centuries to form. In his dissertation, Visconti describes the contents of an entire vase found by Sig. Carnevali. This was a large jar about three palms in height, and contained a cinerary urn (of the form known under the name of a Hut or House Urn) placed in the centre. AVithin the urn were found calcined bones and ashes, a small ointment vase, a bronze fibula, a bronze wheel, and an article of clay re- sembling the stump of a tree. Around it were placed a number of vases; one of them Visconti considers to have been for lustral water ; four others, of a barrel-shape, placed two on each side, he supposes to have contained wine, oil, milk, and honey ; another appears to have been an askos ; there were also two vases, possibly for burning incense, which he calls olla animatoria, a small figure of a man in terra- cotta, a lamp, three paterae and a shallow bowl. The urn itself, he says, was curiously marked with zig-zag and meandering lines, and some designs that appeared to him to be written characters or symbols. The door was closed with a bronze pin. The fibula he describes to be of the Etruscan form, and of superior workmanship : and near the urn were found a small bronze lance-head, two large knife-blades, and a stylus of very antique form. These, however, must be presumed to be only a part of the many relics discovered by Signor Carnevali." A section of the large jar, showing its contents, is engraved in Plate I. of the illustrations appended to Visconti's letter. A reduced representation of it may be found in Birch's Ancient Pottery, vol. ii. p. 197.