Fig. 20.
Fig. 21.
Another excellent example of the inverted position of the sepulchral urns is here given ([fig. 22]) from one of the cists in Rolly-Low, near Wardlow. I have chosen it because, when found by Mr. Bateman, it had received a considerable fracture on one side, and thus showed the burnt bones which it contained, through the aperture. The urn was about sixteen inches in height and twelve inches in diameter, and was ornamented in the usual manner with indentations produced by a twisted thong. It was inverted over a deposit of calcined human bones, among which was a large red deer’s horn, also calcined. The urn was so fragile as to be broken to pieces on removal.
Fig. 22.
In some urns discovered in Cambridgeshire, at Muttilow Hill, the Hon. R. C. Neville found that the calcined bones had been collected and wrapped in cloth before being placed in the urns. The contents of one of the urns he describes as “burnt human bones enveloped in a cloth, which, on looking into the vessel, gave them the appearance of being viewed through a yellow gauze veil, but which upon being touched dissolved into fine powder.”[12] The urns were all inverted.
A somewhat peculiar feature of urn burial was discovered at Broughton, in Lincolnshire, where the urn containing the burnt bones was placed upright on the surface of the ground, and another urn, made to fit the mouth, inverted into it to form a cover.
In instances where the ashes of the dead have been collected from the funeral pyre, and laid in a skin or cloth before interment, the bone or bronze pins with which the “bundle” was fastened still remain, although, of course, the cloth itself has long since perished.