Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 5.djvu/379

 BERKSHIRE ANTiaUITIES. 283 qnent page of this Journal (see Archaeological Intelligence) but differs both in being wider at the base, and having a shoulder to receive the haft. If the implement in question was not an ordinary knife, and used as such ^ it may perhaps have been a sacrificial instrument, em})loyed in flaying the victim, for which its peculiar make would exactly fit it. If it were so, we have a reason why it was deposited in the barrow, as hav- ing lent its aid in removing the skin of the animal in which the bones were wrapped, and therefore, from a superstitious feeling, interred with them. On the construction of the barrow, which was somewliat peculiar, a few words nuist be said. It appears to have been this. A ring or basin of chalk rubble, of about half the dia- meter of the present moimd, was first raised on the plain surface of the down, as a preparation for the funeral pile. This was put together wet, and a good deal more chalk pow- dered and moistened and spread over it ; which being either rammed, or trodden in, as is most probable, by naked feet, formed the kind of strong concrete, which has before been no- ticed as troublesome to the workmen. On the smooth surface in the middle, was spread n layer of clear, red, moist clay, about half an inch thick, (it was so found,) probably for the purpose of receiving and securing all the relics of the body ; and on it the funeral pile was built. When bm"nt out, the bones were carefully collected together preparatory to being finally deposited by themselves ; and it nuist have been in the course of this operation that the little heaps of wood ashes occurring from time to time on the side of the barrow, were thrown out of the central basin to clear the Avay. When all was properly disposed, the material cm})loyed in filling u}) was first the stiff clayey soil of the coimtry, in which the bones are found em- bedded, and in which it is wonderful they can have been pre- served at all, and then lighter mould, the parings of the down, until the tumulus was fasliioned and completed ; the chalk basin being left undisturbed, and rising quite up to the surface ® On the subject of the British warriors' 'Arpei'Si/s be, tpvaffdixei/os x^'P'"'" M" knives, and with which it is loo nuicii to ite X^-'P"'') feared they sometimes cut their enemies' "H ol irap ^icpfos fieya icovXfhv aliv &a>pTo, throats, 1 do not recollect to have seen it 'Apuwv iic iciipaXiciv Tafxve rpixas' avrap remarked, that Agamenn^on liimself cou- (ireira stnutlii wore one. He uses his for a digni- K-i'jpu/cey Tptlioov koX 'Axatwr vflixav api- fied and holy purpose, that of cutting off cttois. ic.r. 1. y. 271. wool from the heads of the victims, hut it That fxaxcipa may sii:;nify a knife, and was also as a substitute for a pair of scis- small one too, it is unnecessary to prove, sors, which he did not possess.