Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 7.djvu/101

Rh promise, that all valuables discovered should be rendered up to them, at length secured their permission.

The excavation was filled up, an earthen vessel, containing some coins and a memorial of the search thus carried out, having been deposited.

The little vase (of which a representation, half orig. size, is here given), is of ashy grey ware, the scorings very strongly marked, and defined with considerable care by a sharp point. A cup, of similar, but more rude fashion, was found by Sir Richard, with an interment of burnt bones, in a tumulus on Gorton Downs, Wilts. Another specimen, of like form, with perforations at the sides, and remarkable as being a double cup, having a division in the middle, so that the cavity on either side is equal, was found at Winterbourn Stoke; and a few other examples may be noticed, found in Wiltshire, of which one, with perforated sides, is covered by rows of bosses like nail-heads. These little cups occasionally have only the lateralholes, as if for suspension; sometimes the bottom is pierced like a cullender, and sometimes they are fabricated with open work, like a rude basket, of which the most elaborate example is one found at Bulford, given in this Journal (Vol. vi., p. 319). They appear to have been destined for various uses besides that of thuribula, and deserve to be classified by aid of more detailed investigation.

Mr. reported an interesting discovery illustrative of the same subject, and supplying an example of these diminutive British fictilia, hitherto almost exclusively noticed in Wiltshire tumuli. He communicated also a detailed account, with drawings supplied by Mr., of Worcester, in whose possession the urn is now preserved. In November, 1849, Mr. Lees visited the Worcestershire Beacon, on the range of heights immediately above Great Malvern, and met with some of the party engaged upon the new Trigonometrical Survey, who showed him part of a human cranium, found three days previously in excavating on the summit of the beacon to find the mark left as a datum during the former Survey. On uncovering the rock, about nine inches below the surface, just on the outer edge towards the south of the pile of loose stones, the small urn (here represented) was found in a cavity of the rock, with some bones and ashes. The urn was placed in an inverted position, covering part of the ashes, and the half-burned bones lay near and around it. Its height is 2$1⁄4$ inches; breadth, at top, 3 inches. The bottom of this little vessel is nearly three-quarters of an inch in thickness. The impressed markings are very deficient in regularity. Another deposit of bones, but without an urn, was also found on the north side of the heap of stones, marking the summit; and this heap, although renewed in recent times as a kind of beacon, very probably occupies the site of an ancient cairn.

The discovery was made by Private Harkiss, of the Royal Ordnance Corps, who gave the fragments of the urn to Mr. Lees. On further examination of the spot, some bones were collected; and, being submitted to anatomical examination, they were pronounced to be the remains of an adult human subject, which had undergone cremation. The urn is of simple form, somewhat different in character to any found in Wilts; it bears a