Grave-mounds and Their Contents / A Manual of Archæology, as Exemplified in the Burials of the Celtic, the Romano-British, and the Anglo-Saxon Periods

by Llewellynn Frederick William Jewitt

Fig. 84.

CHAPTER V.

Ancient British or Celtic Period—Pottery—Mode of manufacture—Arrangement in classes—Cinerary or Sepulchral Urns—Food Vessels—Drinking Cups—Incense Cups—Probably Sepulchral Urns for Infants—Other examples of Pottery.

Having spoken of the principles of construction of the grave-mounds of the Celtic period, and described the various modes of interment which they exhibit, I now proceed to speak of the objects found in them. Before doing so, however, it is necessary to say, that in the course of examination of barrows of this period it not unfrequently happens that the spot where the funeral pyre has been lit can very clearly be perceived. In these instances the ground beneath is generally found to be burned to some considerable depth; sometimes, indeed, it is burned to a fine red colour, and approaches somewhat to brick. Where it was intended that the remains should be collected together, and placed in an urn for interment, I apprehend, from careful examination, that the urn, being formed of clay—most probably, judging from the delicacy of touch, and from the impress of fingers which occasionally remains, by the females of the tribes—and ornamented according to the taste of the manipulator, was placed in the funeral fire, and there baked, while the body of the deceased was being consumed. The remains of the calcined bones, the flints, etc, were then gathered up together, and placed in the urn; over which the mound was next raised. When it was not intended to use an urn, then the remains were collected together, piled up in a small heap, or occasionally enclosed in a skin or cloth, and covered to some little thickness with earth, and occasionally with small stones. Another fire was then lit on the top of this small mound, which had the effect of baking the earth, and enclosing the remains of calcined bones, etc., in a kind of crust, resembling in colour and hardness a partly baked brick. Over this, as usual, the mound was afterwards raised.

The most important feature in the construction of the grave-mounds of the Celtic period is, perhaps, the pottery, and to this, therefore, the present chapter will be devoted. The pottery of this period may be safely arranged in four classes;[25] viz., 1. Sepulchral Urns, which have contained, or been inverted over, calcined human bones. 2. Food Vessels (so called), which are supposed to have contained an offering of food, and which are more usually found with unburnt bodies than along with interments by cremation. 3. Drinking Cups, which are usually ornamented. 4. Incense Cups (erroneously so called for want of more knowledge of their use), which are very small vessels, found only with burnt bones, and usually containing them, in the large cinerary urns.

The pottery was, without doubt, made on, or near to, the spot where found. It was, there is every probability, the handiwork of the females of the tribe, and occasionally exhibits no little elegance of form, and no small degree of ornamentation. The urns, of whatever kind they may be, are formed of the coarse common clay of the district where made, occasionally mixed with small pebbles and gravel; they are entirely wrought by hand, without the assistance of the wheel, and are, the larger vessels especially, extremely thick.

From their imperfect firing, the vessels of this period are usually called “sun-baked” or “sun-dried,” but this is a grave error, as any one conversant with examples cannot fail, on careful examination, to see. If the vessels were “sun-baked” only, their burial in the earth—in the tumuli wherein, some two thousand years ago, they were deposited, and where they have all that time remained—would soon soften them, and they would, ages ago, have returned to their old clayey consistency. As it is, the urns have remained of their original form, and although, from imperfect baking, they are sometimes found partially softened, they still retain their form, and soon regain their original hardness. They bear abundant evidence of the action of fire, and are, indeed, sometimes sufficiently burned for the clay to have attained a red colour—a result which no “sun-baking” could produce. They are mostly of an earthy brown colour outside, and almost black in fracture, and many of the cinerary urns bear internal and unmistakable evidence of having been filled with the burnt bones and ashes of the deceased, while those ashes were of a glowing and intense heat. They were, most probably, fashioned by the females of the tribe, on the death of their relative, from the clay to be found nearest to the spot, and baked on or by the funeral pyre. The glowing ashes and bones were then, as I have already stated, collected together, and placed in the urn, and the flint implements, and occasionally other relics belonging to the deceased, deposited along with them.

The Cinerary, or Sepulchral, Urns vary very considerably in size, in form, in ornamentation, and in material—the latter, naturally, depending on the locality where the urns were made; and, as a general rule, they differ also in the different tribes. Those which are supposed to be the most ancient, from the fact of their frequently containing flint instruments along with the calcined bones, are of large size, ranging from nine or ten, to sixteen or eighteen inches in height. Those which are considered to belong to a somewhat later period, when cremation had again become general, are of a smaller size, and of a somewhat finer texture. With them objects of flint are rarely found, but articles of bronze are occasionally discovered. The general form of the cinerary urns will be best understood from the annexed engravings.

The principal characteristic of the cinerary urns found in Derbyshire and Staffordshire, and in some other districts, is a deep overlapping border or rim, and their ornamentation, always produced by indenting or pressing twisted thongs into the soft clay, or by simple incisions, or by indentations produced by simple means, as will be more particularly named later on, is frequently very elaborate. It usually consists of diagonal lines (see [fig. 85]) arranged in a variety of ways, or of herring-bone or zigzag lines, or of reticulations, or of rows of punctures, etc., etc. This ornamentation is usually confined to the upper portion of the urn, including the over-lapping rim and the neck; and in many instances the upper edge and the inside of the rim were in like manner ornamented. Some of the more usual forms are the following.