funeral pyre for their dead, and even so rude a vase wherein their ashes might be inurned.

One obvious distinction is at once apparent between the unsymmetrical hand-made urn and that which has been turned and fashioned into regular shape. Yet even this marked subdivision will not suffice for chronological arrangement; for the very rudest and most unsymmetrical of all the hand-made urns in the Scottish Museum, devoid of grace, and destitute of the very slightest attempt at ornament, was found to cover a pair of gold armillæ somewhat roughly finished with the hammer, and three smaller rings of the same metal, two of which are neatly ornamented with parallel grooves.' It seems, indeed, as if some pious hand may have hastily fashioned the clay into shape while the flames of the funeral pile were preparing the ashes it was to hold.

It is obvious even from this single instance, that any assignment of native fictilia to the primeval period can only be done on the distinct ground of their being found accompanied solely with the relics of flint and stone, and in barrows or cists of the most ancient construction. Still, setting aside the idea of a precise chronological arrangement, somewhat may be done as an approximation towards a system of classification. The early British pottery, though at best sufficiently rude, exhibits considerable variety both in form and workmanship, from the coarsest specimens of unshapely sun-dried clay to the graceful and elaborately decorated vases made by workmen who had acquired a knowledge of the potter's wheel. The latter idea has, indeed, been denied on high authority, since it was first advanced in the former edition of this work, but, as I think, from a too literal assumption of the old "potter's wheel" as the precise equivalent of modern mechanical contrivances. In his Historical Eth1 Archool. Scot. vol. iv. p. 298, and Plate XII.

nology of Britain,' when describing the pottery chiefly exhumed from barrows, Dr. Thurnam remarks:-" It is all more or less rude; and, as its lightness, porosity, and fragility show, is merely sun-dried, or, at the most, imperfectly baked and reddened on the outside, at an open fire, or in a rude kiln of piled stones. It is often disproportionately thick and unsymmetrical, and exhibits no trace of the potter's wheel. The form and ornament must equally have been given by hand, unaided, unless by a spatula or other simple instrument of wood or bone." On a close examination of some of the more symmetrical examples of such pottery I have repeatedly noticed the continuous spiral striæ traced in the soft clay by the hand or modelling-tool while it was thrown. It must not be assumed, from the use of modern terms, that the ancient potter had perfected for himself all the appliances of the thrower's wheel and the horizontal lathe. I have recently examined, at Boston, U.S., a wheel of the rudest simplicity, brought from India, where it is used by the Hindoo potter at the present day, simply by revolving it in one hand while he shapes the clay with the other. Such a whirling-stick or axis, broad enough at top to hold the mass of clay needed for the vessel in process of formation, is all that is required for throwing; and if by any method, however simple, the old potter learned to communicate motion to the mass of plastic. clay, and while thus revolving he modelled its form by means of tools of wood or bone held against it, this was equivalent not only to the potter's wheel, but also involved the principle of the turning tool and vertical lathe.

It is solely due to the protecting enclosure of the cist or chambered cairn that specimens of such fragile ware have been recovered and preserved; but though all, or

Crania Britannica, p. 107.

nearly all the examples of primitive British pottery have been found with sepulchral deposits, it is rarely difficult to discriminate between domestic vessels and cinerary urns, independently of the contents of the latter. The presence of the cup or bowl alongside the weapons and implements deposited with the ashes of the deceased warrior, is readily accounted for. The difficulty which the uncultivated mind experiences in realizing any adequate conception of death, or of a future state, apart from the daily necessities and cravings of the body, has led in many different stages of social progress, to the custom of depositing food and drink, unguents, perfumes, and similar necessaries or luxuries of life beside the remains of the loved dead, or even along with the cinerary urn. The archaeologist has accordingly been long familiar with the fact, that some at least of the fictile ware found in cists and barrows are not sepulchral; and such names as drinking-cups" and "incense-cups" have been given to one numerous class of small vases, whilst others are supposed to be reliquaries, lamps, or ordinary cooking-vessels and other domestic utensils.

Notwithstanding a remarkable example, already referred to, of the discovery of one of the rudest handmade urns along with gold relics, it may be assumed that such vessels generally belong to the earliest period. We cannot, at any rate, hesitate to assign the more ornamental and symmetrical pottery to a period of partially developed art and tutored skill. Even in the case of the rude Banffshire urn, the gold armilla are roughly wrought with the hammer, and may have been fashioned from the native gold by a workman who knew of its ductility, but had yet to learn the use of the furnace, the crucible, and the mould. We know from the most ancient records both of sacred and profane history, that the potter's wheel is among the earliest inventions. It is