Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 3.djvu/136

114 and it almost seems that osseous granulations had been formed since it occurred. This scull exhibits the peculiar lengthy form, the prominent and high cheek bones, and the remarkable narrowness of forehead, which characterize the Celtic races, and distinguish theirs from the rounder, broader sculls, and more upright facial line of the Teutonic tribes. The same kistvaen was casually opened in 1837, in a prior unsuccessful attempt to drain, and the curious position, &c., having been noted, it was closed up: the bones have crumbled greatly since that date, and the sides are mouldering away.

But who were the occupants of these kistvaens? Here is a very ancient cemetery, densely filled, for it must be remembered that we can only have touched upon a very small proportion of the kistvaens which exist, belonging to a small village, which gives no indications of having ever been other than a village, larger or smaller. The mode of interment, though long since passed away, is simple, decent, and unexpensive; and being therefore within the reach of the poorest, yet not unbecoming the greatest, was almost certainly in its day the national mode. If so, the subject is one of great historical interest, and the mode of interment one which will doubtless be found to have been practised in many other places on a similarly large scale. Possibly others have already described it, but I have never happened to meet with any description of it.

The position of bodies and graves has varied with different nations, but I have not met with any satisfactory discussion of the whole question. The Greeks made the bodies, it is said, face the east; the Jews turned the face to Jerusalem; and most of the pagans laid the corpse so as to be towards the midday sun, the primary object of their veneration. The Christians have always buried with the face towards the rising sun, in token of their hope of resurrection at the last day; a primitive and significant Christian habit which one regrets to see occasionally disregarded, by the bodies being laid, like those of suicides, in all directions. In the tenants of the Pytchley kistvaens, the crossing of the arms, together with the east and west position, make it difficult to question their being Christians. Would it be too bold a supposition to imagine that they may have been of a date when the prior pagan habit of placing the corpse to face the midday sun had not yet been forgotten, and was retained as an addition to the usual Chris-