Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 6.djvu/379

 SEPULCHRAL DEPOSIT IN HOLYHEAD ISLAND. 235 In tombs of the Anglo-Roman age, the remarkable usage of enclosing a small cinerary urn in one of larger size, has repeatedly been found ; for instance, at Lincoln, and in the cemetery at Deveril Street, Southwark, where two large ossu- aria, enclosing urns, were found in 1836. (Archaeologia, vols, xii., p. 108 ; xxvi., p. 470 ; and xxvii., p. 412). Mr. Dis- ney has preserved, in his valuable JMuseum of Anticpiities, at the Hyde, Essex, a diminutive vase, found within one of large size, at West Hanningfield Common, in 1823. Both con- tained bones, those which filled the smaller vase being of very small size, and the supposition naturally suggested itself, that the urns contained the remains of a mother and her infimt.'^ A fine globular ossuarium, with a cinerary vase enclosed in it, found during recent railway operations at Old Ford, Essex, is in the possession of the Dean of Westminster. In recent discoveries at Balmer, near Lewes, a number of Anglo-Roman cinerary urns have been found, each enclosing a small urn, inverted, and apparently not containing ashes. In tumuli of the earlier period, small vessels, of various forms, designated by Sir Richard C. Hoare as ch'inking cups, have often been found, placed near the remains, at the feet of the skeleton, or at the side of the head, but in no case, as far as I am aware, ivithiu any British cinerary urn found in Wiltshire. Sir Richard Hoare notices repeatedly the burial of infants in Wiltshire barrows, and occasionally with remains, probably of the mother, as at Cop Head Hill, near Warminster.^ In a tumulus near Amesbury he dis- covered two skeletons of infants deposited in a very singular manner, each having been placed over the head of a cow, which, we might conjecture, had supplied nourishment during the brief term of life. It must be noticed, as a curious observation, that in every case thus described, the skeleton has been found, indicating, as it might be thought, a pecu- liar usage, as regards children of tender age, analogous to tliat of the Ronans ; among whom, as shown in the ^Memoir on Mr. Neville's curious researches at Chesterford, given in this Journal, the burial of infants was not accompanied by cremation.^ representation of the small urn has been See also interments of infants, pp. 77, previously given in the Arclmeol. Journal, 1 1.5, 1 lij, 1-21, L59, 1(J7, and 21 1. p. 85, of this volume. "* Archucol. Jom-ual, p. 21, of tliis ^ Ancient Wilts, vol. i., p. G8, A sea volume.
 * Seethe "Museum Disneianum." A shell (Nerite) lay near the infant skeleton,