gelse, are seven inches in diameter at the mouth, and four inches in height. All the others which had been previously discovered are certainly considerably smaller. The use or object of these singular vessels is not easily explained, since nothing has yet been found with them capable of affording explanation on this point. Some persons have been of opinion that the larger were used as urns for ashes. For it was the custom in the bronze-period to burn the bodies of the dead on large funeral piles, after which the small portions of bone which remained, together with the ashes, were placed in the cinereal urns, as they were styled, and were deposited in barrows. These urns for ashes were usually formed of clay, and in the preparation of them considerable skill is displayed, but they also occur formed of metal, and as a rule are then distinguished by the neatness of their form and the tasteful character of their ornaments. In cases where the ashes and bones remaining from the consumed body were placed in the urn, they observed the custom of placing on the top of the bones and in the middle of the vessel various trifles of bronze, probably from some superstitious motive or other. Thus buttons, hair-pins[1], very small pincers, or as they are fre-
- ↑ The bronze pin here figured, and which is remarkable for having its head hollowed like a cup, and bearing in this respect a striking resemblance to the ends of the golden ornaments often found in Ireland, was discovered on an island in a lake near Carrickmacross, in the autumn of 1844. See Archæological Journal, vol. iii. p. 49.—T.
of the British Archæological Association. For my part I am tempted to assign this valuable relic to the Gauls, and I am pleased to find that M. Raoul Rochette, to whom it has been submitted, is of a similar opinion. The general notion is that it is a quiver, but in this I do not concur, believing rather that it may have been an ornament. I shall be happy to have your opinion on the subject, and to know if similar objects have been found in England."
No such object has, I believe, yet been discovered in England: but a similar one is preserved in the Museum at Munich.—T.
