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192 Ancient Pelasgic and Latian Teases curious bronzes; among which may be particularly mentioned a bronze fibula, ornamented with a human tooth. Other sales probably took place ; but the re- mainder were put away among the lumber in Depoletti's warehouse until they attracted our attention. Baron Bonstetten states that the Princess Volkonska, who was always extremely kind to the poor, wrote to Depoletti about the vases, imploring him to do an act of charity to the widow Carnevali, by purchasing those which the Cavaliere Campana had declined to take. I may add, that Depoletti informed us that the large jar containing the funereal urn and smaller vases still remained in the possession of the princess or her family. The next question to be considered is the probable antiquity of these vases. On this point Visconti argues that they must be anterior to the year 1176 B.C., because they belong to a race far less civilized than the Trojans, who are said to have built Alba Longa about that time. We may probably admit the calculation of age though resting on an uncertain tradition. The existence of Alba Longa, by whomsoever founded, long before the building of Rome, certainly raises a pre- sumption that many of these vases, some of which are of very rude antiquity, may have belonged to a much earlier period. This presumption seems strengthened by the peculiar form of the urns. They represent huts covered with skins, and, as they most probably imitate the habitations of the living, they not only belong to a condition of society but little removed from a state of barbarism, but seem to indicate a wandering race, scarcely emerged from their original migratory habits.* The terra-cotta figure of a man, possibly symbolical of a human victim, and the bronze fibula with a human tooth set in it, further confirm the idea of extreme antiquity. Nor can the discovery of certain bronze objects of superior workman- ship rebut the presumption, since even barbarians in such a situation must have had frequent intercourse with other more civilized races. Passing on from the question of antiquity to the still more difficult one of etlmolotry, these Pelasgic vases appear to have considerable value. The singularity and quaintness of many of their forms, with their knobs, their studs, and thorny projections, appear to separate them widely from the arts of Greece and Asia, and to assimilate them much more nearly to the rude pottery of the Teutonic and Celtic races. It would be difficult to distinguish many of them from vases found in British and Saxon barrows, and it seems almost certain that they must m I should however mention that some Archaeologists have ascribed these curious sepulchral urns to the Swiss troops stationed at Alba under the empire, basing their opinions on the similarity of the hut-urns to the rude cottages of the Khfetian peasants. See Bulletino del Institute Archeologico, 1846, p. 95.