DESCRIPTIONS OE CEANIA.
by Sir Bictard Hoare. Their " superficies is flat on one side, and convex on the other ; they
are made of bone, which seems to have been stained and polished by attrition ; and each side is
marked with a difl'erent pattern and device, except in one instance where both sides are left
blank. We might be led to suppose by this circumstance that * * * * they have been used like
the ancient tahw or tessera, for some kind of game." The passion of the ancient Germans for
dice*, and their extravagant addiction to play, are remarked by Tacitusf. There was a great
general agreement in the manners of the Celts, Germans, and other northern peoples ; and from
these discoveries in the barrows it may be inferred that the lines of Virgil in which the barbarian
tribes of ScytMa and Thrace are represented as passing the long nights of winter in play, and in
drinking beer and cider made from the berries of the service-tree i, may with little modification
1)6 applied to our own British predecessors.
The skull is well preserved, excepting the nasal bones and base of the cranium, which are
much decayed : it weighs 29J ozs. Av. The somewhat porous condition of the bones agrees with
the fact of the body having been interred in a superficial cist, and covered with a barrow of
slight elevation. The skuU is that of a man of middle age, probably about fifty years. AH the
teeth have been in place, excepting the first right premolar in the upper jaw, which has been
lost dm-ing life : they are laxge and in good condition, except that the crowns are considerably
worn. The nasal bones do not present the abrupt projection so marked in the skull from barrow
No. 2 of the same group. The face is large and broad, with prominent malars. The upper and
lower maxiUaries are very deep and large, and strongly marked for muscular attachment. The
upper alveolar process is so prominent as to give almost a prognathic aspect to the profile, which
in life must have been singularly baboon-like and unpleasing. The glabella and superciliary
ridges are full and prominent ; the forehead narrow, flat, and receding ; the occiput fuU and
projecting. The general form of the cranium differs greatly from that from the adjoining barrow,
figured in Plate 42. That approaches an acrocephalic, this a platycephalic form ; that is eminently
brachycephaHc, this more nearly of a dolichocephalic character. As the eye at once
detects, the difference is much greater than would be inferred from a mere comparison of the
measurements. The respective peculiarities of form in the two skulls may possibly be explained
by supposing that both have been subject to artificial deformation, though of a different kind,—
the one (No. 42) appearing to have heen flattened on the occiput, the other showing a depression
immediately behind the coronal suture, over the parietal bones, which seems to indicate that this
part of the skuU was subject to some habitual pressure and constriction, perhaps from the use
of a bandage or ligature tightly bound across the head and tied under the chin, such as to this
day is employed in certain parts of the west of Erance, producing that form of distortion named
by Dr. Gosse § the sincipital or tête Ulohée. The thickest parts of the parietals measure a third,
those of the frontal bones half an inch. The capacity of the skuU is large, and such as indicates
a brain weighing about 56 ozs.
Eor the Measurements of this skuU, see the Table given in the Description of the other
(J. T.)
^ " Hie noctem ludo ducunt, ct pocula loeti
Fermento atque acidis imitantur vitea sorbis."
(Georg. iii. 379.)
§ Deformations Artificielles du Crâne, 1855, p. 66, pl. ii.
fig. 3 ; iv. 3 ; V. 2 ; where is a representation of the peculiar
coiffure by which this form of distortion ig produced.
(•i)
skuU from Roundway, figured in Plate 42.
• Ancient Wilts, vol. i. p. 212. pi. 31. By the ancients,
four tali were used in their play, but only three tessertB,
t Germania, c. xxiv. "Aleam sohrii inter seria exercent,
tanta lucraudi perdendive temcritate, ut, cum omnia defecemnt,
extreme ac norissimo jactu de libertate et de corpore contendant."
43.
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