They occur, though rarely, in Ireland.[1] I have one from Trillick, Tyrone.
Fig. 364.—Faroe Islands.
In former times these cups were regarded as "Druidical pateræ;" but Sir Daniel Wilson[2] has pointed out that in the Faroe Islands, a similar kind of vessel is still in use as a lamp or as a chafing-dish for carrying live embers. He has engraved one of them in the cut here reproduced. The same kind of rude lamp or cresset is in use in Ceylon.[3] These Scottish vessels probably belong to no very remote antiquity.
A shallow one-handled saucer or stand of Kimmeridge shale was found at Povington, Dorset,[4] but was probably intended for some other purpose than the Scottish cup. It has been suggested that it was for holding the flakes of flint supposed to have been used for turning the armlets and other objects of Kimmeridge coal, many fragments of which, as well as numerous pieces of flint, were found with it; but it seems more probable that the turning tools were of metal. It may be an unfinished lamp-stand, or possibly a lamp.
Cups, however, formed of shale, and most skilfully made, have occasionally been found in barrows. The most remarkable is that which was discovered in a tumulus at Broad Down,[5] near Honiton, by the Rev. Richard Kirwan, to whom I am indebted for the loan of the full-sized figure (Fig. 365) on the next page. The woodcut gives so perfect a representation of its form that any detailed description is needless. Its height is 358 inches, and its greatest diameter, which is at the mouth, 3 inches. Its capacity is about a gill. The material of which it is formed appears in all probability to be Kimmeridge[6] shale, though it is difficult to pronounce on this point with certainty. In another barrow, also on Broad Down,[7] Mr. Kirwan came upon a bronze spear-head, or rather dagger, which had been attached to its haft by rivets, lying on a deposit of burnt bones; and at a distance from it of about 3 feet he discovered a drinking-cup of shale, of almost similar form and size to that previously found. It is about 314 inches high, and 3 inches in diameter at the mouth, and is now preserved in the Albert Museum at Exeter. One very remarkable feature about these
- ↑ Wilde, "Cat. Mus. R. I. A.," p. 114.
- ↑ P. S. A. S., vol. i. p. 118. "Preh. Ann. of Scot.," vol. i. p. 208.
- ↑ Arch. Journ., vol. xiii. p. 104.
- ↑ Engraved in Arch. Journ., vol. xvi. p. 299.
- ↑ Arch. Journ., vol. xxv. p. 290. Trans. Preh. Cong., 1868, p. 363. Trans. Devon. Assoc., vol. ii. p. 619; xii. p. 124.
- ↑ See Pengelly in Tr. Dev. Assoc., vol. iv. p. 105.
- ↑ Trans. Devon. Assoc., vol. iv. p. 302, pl. iv. 2.
