Fig. 3.—Cleatham.
The pottery of this period may be safely arranged in four classes[1], viz.—1. Sepulchral or Cinerary Urns, which have been made for and have contained, or been inverted over, calcined human bones; 2. Drinking Cups, which, in a similar manner, are supposed to have contained some liquid to be placed with the dead body; 3. 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; 4. Immolation Urns, (erroneously called Incense Cups by Sir R. Colt Hoare for want of more knowledge of their use), which are very small vessels, found only with burnt bones (and usually also containing them), placed in the mouths of, or close by, the larger cinerary urns. These latter I believe to have been simply small urns intended to receive the ashes of the infant, perhaps sacrificed at the death of its mother, so as to admit of being placed within the larger urn containing the ashes of the parent: I venture, therefore, to name them “Immolation Urns.”
No notice of the pottery of this period is to be found in ancient writers, if we except the allusion of Strabo,[2] who says that one of the commodities with which the Phœnicians traded to the Cassiterides was earthenware. But in connection with this it is necessary to state that no example of pottery which can possibly be traced to Phœnician origin has as yet been found in any of the hundreds of barrows which have been opened.
Fig. 4.—Ballidon Moor.
Fig. 5.—Tresvenneck.
The pottery exhibits considerable difference, both in clay, in size, and in ornamentation. Those presumed to be the oldest are of coarse clay mixed with small pebbles and sand; the later ones of a somewhat less clumsy form, and perhaps a finer mixture of clays. They are entirely wrought by hand without the assistance of the wheel, and are mostly very thick and clumsy. They are very imperfectly fired, having probably been baked on the funeral pyre.
In the 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 in texture somewhat to that of brick. Where it was intended that the remains should be placed in an urn for interment, it appears, from careful examinations which have been made, 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 tribe—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, &c., were then gathered up together, and placed in the urn; over which the mound was next raised.