Page:Archaeologia volume 38 part 2.djvu/195

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at West Kennet, Wiltshire.
411

as that on Mount Sepia in Arcadia, in Homer's time regarded as the burial-place of Æpytus, and which is described by Pausanias as a tumulus of earth, inclosed at the base by a stone wall set round it in a circle.[1]

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Fig. 5. View In the Gallery looking towards the Chamber.

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Fig. 6. View In the Chamber looking through the entrance.

Permission had not been given to move any of the stones on the surface, and our operations were confined to the neighbourhood of the presumed chamber, and to digging on the east and west sides of the three large cap-stones.[2] Westward of these was a considerable hollow in the mound, marking the site of some ancient digging, which the discovery of a bit of well-fired pottery, the foot of a small vessel, seemed to connect with the Roman period. The west wall of the chamber was soon exposed, formed by four large sarsen stones, each about a ton in weight, placed horizontally; below these were two larger uprights, one of which had been split, perhaps by the weight of the covering stone. Entrance to the chamber was obtained by the removal of the upper flat stones, by the use of "screw-jacks" and rollers of timber; a process afterwards applied with great

  1. Homer, Il. lib. ii. 604. Pausan. lib. viii. c. 16., ἐλίθου κρηπῖδι ἐν κύκλῳ περιεχόμενον.
  2. For the sanction to excavate, the writer must express his obligation to the proprietor, the Rev. R. M. Ashe, of Langley Burrell, near Chippenham.