Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 11.djvu/384

 3:20 DESCRIPTION OF A CHAMBERED TUMULUS forming the roof, which were afterwards replaced, and in the course of which more or less disarrangement cannot but have occurred. Over the gallery and chambers, a heap of stones, or cairn, was raised, which had been neatly finished on the outside with a facing of dry Avail, carried up to a height of from two to three feet, in continuation of that observed on each side of the apjiroach to the entrance. At this end, the cairn appears to have been lengthened after its original furmation, by an extension of the dry walling, as shown on the general plan. At the west end of the tumulus, are dry walls inter- secting the others at right angles, the object of which it is difficult to understand ; possibly, it was intended to con- struct chambers at this end of iio cairn, similar to those at the east, should the occasion have arisen. On the outside of the enclosing wall, the cairn was again piled up, so as to cover and protect this dry walling ; and, over the whole, appears to have been laid a thin covering of vegetable mould. Among the stones which filled up the approach to the entrance, and from two to three feet above the level of the natural ground, were two human skeletons, one of which was laid on the right side in a direction nearly east and west. The other was inadvertently dis])laced before its position had been observed. Near tlicse skeletons, and close to the laige upper stone of the trilith forming the entrance, were the lower jaws with the teeth and tusks of several wild boars, without, it is said, any other of the bones of tlicsc animals, even those of the skulls."^ The condition in which these two interments were found, appears to prove that the true entrance had not been discovered, or at least opened out, by those Avho rifled the interior in early times. These interments were prol)ably contemporary or nearly so with those in the interior. Of this, however, there is no actual j)roof ; they, ])crliaps, indicate sacrificial I'ites in h(jiiour of those entombrd withiii ; or (lie jaws ni;iy have which iiro prcw.Tveil in tiic Muhouiii of pi. xxix.) Tlio IuhKh of tiio i'xiHlin|j; wild ^jiiy'n IIoHpilu!,iiii'iimir<! from to 7 iiu-lioH hour of Kiiropt- ntly ill li-ni^tli, on till! iiirj^rr oiirvo. Tliiu Ih to cxi-ccd .'i inclii'H in lt'ii;,'th ; iIioho ol fthoiit tli« UiiiKlli of what Sir U. C. Ilonro tin; liiijiiin wild Inmr iiro uftcn more tlinii <*ii11h nil " ononiiouH tiiHk '' of tlio hhiiU! 7 inclirH, iind thiTc » oim Hpccinicn in nniiiiiil, found liy liiin in ii li.'irrow not f;ir the MiiMriini of tlio Collrf^c of Siirj;coiis froiii .S(<iiii'licn;;<', widi it Iniiiiuii ski'litmi in Luiidoii, inoi'u tliuii !' iiu-licH in K'ligtli. and r<'iii;irkiil)li.' oiiji-cts of liotli htoiic und
 * The tuHks of tlu-Hc Imnrs, Honic? of l)rn/.o. (Ancii'iit WiltH, vol. i., p. 20f),