i I
T
I J I
} !
. . I
A !
A N C I E N T BRITISH SKULL.
FEOM BAREOW AT GRISTHOEPE, NORTH RIDING, YORKSHIRE.
(REGION OP THE BBIGANTES, TEHP. PT0LBMJ3I, A.D. 120.)
Craniwn from Barrow at Gristhorpe.—Quarter-size.
ON the summit of the high cliff between Scarborough and Eiley, at Gristhorpe, are three
barrows which overlook the ocean,—reminding us that this was the situation which, by the
Greeks of the heroic age, no less than the ancient peoples of Western Europe, was chosen for the
barrow tombs of their chiefs. Such was that of Achilles—
" On a tall promontory, shooting far
Into the spacious Hellespont."—ODYSS. xxiv. 80.
So in our Anglo-Saxon Iliad, Beowulf when at the point of death says—
" Bid them upon yon headland's summit rear
A lofty mound, by Hrona's sea-girt ness ;
So that my people, and the mariners
That drive afar to sea, oft as they pass,
Sliall point to Beowulfa tomb."—BEOW. xxxviii. 5600.
In the more northern and southern of the barrows, mns with burnt bones were found. The
central tumulus was excavated in 1834*. It measured three feet in height, and forty in diameter,
and consisted of stones raised over a pit dug, to the depth of six or seven feet, in the clay of the
dikmum. At the bottom of this cist was an immense coffin, which lay in the meridional line.
With a number of oak-branches thrown over it,—a layer of clay covering the whole. The coffin
* De_scriptiou of Tumulus," &c. By W. C. Williamson. M.R.C.S.. 2nd ed. 1836. See also Gent. Mag. Dec. 1834, p. 632 •
Aug 18.5,. p. 14 , Dec. 1861. p. 639. " Worsaae," by W. J. Thoms, 1849, pp. xvi, 96. Gent. Mag. Sept. 1863, p. 328
llie two last references are to oak coffins, of the bronze period, discovered in Denmark, in 1827 and 1863
(»