Examination of barrows on the downs of north Wiltshire, in 1853-57 / by John Thurnam.

  • Thurnam, John, 1810-1873.
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Examination of barrows on the downs of north Wiltshire, in 1853-57 / by John Thurnam. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    triplet, were opened, they were also found to cover interments after cremation. 2. This barrow is on Morgan’s Hill just above Old Shepherd’s Shore, close to, and on the south of, the barrier of Wansdyke. It is of the simple bowl-form and about three feet high. The turf over it was perfectly smooth and appeared never to have been disturbed. At a depth of three and a half feet, in an oval cist in the natural surface of the chalk was the skeleton of a man, about thirty years of age and probably six feet in height. The skeleton was in a con- tracted position, with the head to the north, the knees drawn up and the legs completely flexed behind the thighs. There was no other relic of any kind. The skull (of which four views are given1) is of full size, and had contained a brain weighing upwards of 53 oz. It approaches to the shortened-oval or brachycephalic form. The forehead is narrow but moderately full and high: the nasal bones project most abruptly. The facial bones are of full size and rugged. The ascending process of the lower jaw is broad and rectangular. The teeth are large, one molar only having been lost during life, from the effects of an alveolar abscess. Their crowns are much worn, the eroded and hollow surfaces having an oblique position. The thigh bones measured nineteen and a half, and the leg bones (tibiae) fifteen and a half inches in length. 3. A large conical mound, with steep irregular sides and nearly seven feet high, on the west of Morgan’s Hill, close to the foss on the north side of Wansdyke and just above its junction with the Homan road from Cunetio.2 A large shaft was sunk through the centre to the depth of seven feet, but nothing was found excepting some black wood ashes at two feet, and again at five feet. The probable conclusion is, that this was a beacon or specular mound commanding the extensive vale of the Avon, which spreads out below 1 We are indebted to Mr. J. B. Davis, F.S.A., for the use of these wood en- gravings, which are taken from the Fourth Decade of the “Crania Britannica,” where a lithographed full-sized profile view of this skull is also given. 2 Shown in Hoare’s Ancient Wilts, vol. ii. pi. 5, No. 2; and in Stukeley’s Abury, pi. 10. The mound described must have been close to the gibbet seen in this last plate.