Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1880-04-15
NO. H..
PREHISTORIC ENGLISH POTTERY.
The Greenwell Collection in the Brit
tsh MuseHm--The Relies of Distant
Age.

Age.
London Times
The British museum had existed for
nearly acentury before the authorities
| bethought themselves of directing their
attention to the early antiquities of
their own country. Up to that time
the energy of arcb@ologists was chiefly
devoted to acquiring the more, attrac-
| tive remains OF classical times, though
even here the babit was to collect OBJ.
jects without paying attention to their
exact localities or to the circumstances
of their discovery, facts to which the
greatest importance Is now justly at
Etached. This phase of archaeology is
| past, as 1t Is now understood that the
value of antiquarian relics depends in
great measure on the light they throw
on the manners and customs of ancient
peoples. The British museum has
| been fortunate In acquiring the burrow
remains excavated by Mr.. Martin At
kins, DR.. Thurman, and the Rev. J. c.
Atkinson. None of these, however.
can be compared with the remarkable
collection which during the last twenty
years has been brought together by
Canon Greenwell, of Durham, during
his diggings in nearly two hundred bur-
rows In various parts of England and
! Scotland. This very remarkable COL
lection, the result of much labor and
no little expenditure of money, he mas
generously presented to the British
museum, and it may be considered
without doubt the most valuable ac-
QUESTION in that section that the ma
tional collection has hitherto received.
| There are more than two hundred YES
sels of pottery, which may be divided
into cinerary urns. food vessels, drink
ing-cups, and incense-cups, all names
which have been somewhat arbitrarily
bestowed upon by antiquaries, but
which it is convenient to retain until
we have some better ground for apply
ing others. All this pottery is but
slightly baked, generally ornamented
with zigzags and other primitive decor
alton, made by impressing on the soft
clay twisted cord or by scoring it with
pointed instrument. The largest
specimens are the cinerary urns, with
broad band round the upper part,
slightly overhanging the body of the
vase. Among these may be noticed
one from Marlborough, Northumber-
land, with singular rows of projecting
scallops, and two others with zigzags in
high relief, otherwise the type is very
uniform, but in shape quite unlike the
cinerary urns OF any other country.
There are few dinlinutive specimens
which can hardly have been used for
burned bones, and in fact, have rarely
been found containing them. The So
called food vessels are smaller in size
than the urns, much more richly orna-
mented, and sometimes Of consider
able elegance, both in form and decora-
ton. Among them is one from Good
manbam, which exceeds in perfection
any British vase we have seen; the
truth of the outline, the fneness of the
clay, and the delicacy Of the ornamen.
tation are most remarkable. The
drinking cups may well have been
used for the purpose to which they
have been assigned. They are thinner
in substance than the other vases, and
taper off toward the edge, narrower
in shape than the food vessels, and still
more richly ornamented.
The most singular vessels, however,
are the so.called incense cups. They
are small, very fantastic, and various in
shape, and often have perforations,
forming in some instances, almost a
basket of open work. 1t is not easy
to conjecture to what use these curious
vessels could nave been applied. The
best suggestion that has been made is
that they were employed to carry live
ember with which to kindle the funeral
pyre. One remarkable example from
Aldburne, Wits mas a cover almost as
large as itself, which does not in any
way support most of the theories that
have been propounded as to the use of
these cups, which seem peculiar to the
British islands. 1t is, however, oues-
ton whether the bulk of the vessels
found in these tombs are really used or
was only made to be inferred with the
dead. The ware seems to be so friable
that it is difficult to understand how it
could bear the rough usage of a semi
barbarous people; but in many of the
burrows fragments of another kind of
pottery have been discovered scattered
among the earth, unornamented and
better baked. Only one vessel OF this
type from Heslerton, Yorkshire, was
found sufficiently perfect to be restored.
In other relics found with interments
the collection is not so rich as that
found by Sir r. G. Hoare- There is
nothing of gold, and but little bronze,
and that chiefly knives or daggers and
avis of the primitive type. In flint
there are knives arrowheads, saws,
scrapers, etc., some of them exquistely
Clipped. Among the other objects of
stones there are a few ax-hammers,
which may have been used as battle
axes, even down to the bronze period.
The personal ornaments consist chiefly
of Jet or fgnite buttons ard beads. One
of these ancient people had bronze ear
rings another a pair of bone tweeZers,
supposed to have been used for holding
up the dress. A few bone pins and
some beads of clay complete their per-
sonal decoration, as far as it has sur
vived. Fire they seemed to have oh.
tained by means Of flint and
nodule of iron pyrites, the specimens
IN this collection showing marks of long
use; they were found together in the
grave of man at RudstoDe, Yorkshire.
The contents of these graves do rot
speak much for the worldly occupants,
but they throw light on the condition
of the ancient inhabitants Of these islands
and belong to times far before docu-
menta-y history. How many centuries
have elapsed since these burrow max
ers lived it is impossible to say, but
there can be 40 doubt that they belong
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