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420 him to a common grave. Such, at least, is probable, from the description, by Herodotus, of the funerals of the kings of the Scythians, who by modern critics are regarded as an Indo-European people, and perhaps as nearly allied to the Celtic as to the Teutonic races. From this passage, also, we may perhaps derive some light as to the mode of burial among those rude Celtic tribes, by whom probably the long-chambered barrows of Western Britain were raised. This applies not merely to the immolation of victims, practised alike by both people, but also to the thatched roof erected by the Scythians over the body of the king, a similar structure to which, when decayed, may have given rise to the black stratum of earth observed in the chambered barrow at Kennet, and in most of the long barrows of Wiltshire. From the same historian it is known that among some of the Thracian tribes, the wife supposed to have been most loved by the deceased was slain on the sepulchral mound, and buried in it with her husband. In what manner the Thracian widows were slain is not described. Those of the Scythian chiefs were strangled; whilst the condition of at least two skulls in the Kennet tumulus makes it probable that among these Western Celts death was caused by cleaving the skull with a sword or hatchet, perhaps of stone. Evidence had been previously obtained from the barrows of Wiltshire of this mode of immolation of funereal victims; and it is remarkable that two out of three instances which may be cited are in the case of long barrows. In 1801 Mr. Cunnington opened the long barrow near Heytesbury, called "Bowls' Barrow," in which he found several skeletons crowded together at the east end, the skull of one of which "appeared to have been cut in two by a sword." In a circular