with a few pieces of burnt bone around them. The colour of these stones is black, white, and green, the latter being thinner and of less weight than the others. It was conjectured that they might have been deposited as a charm, or they might have been sling-stones, a purpose for which they appeared suitable.
The workmanship of these examples of ancient pottery is far more elaborate than that of the Celtic urns with which we are most familiar in England. The ornaments are not simple scorings, zig-zag or other patterns, but tooled or chiselled, so as to present portions in high relief; amongst the forms frequently occurring on Irish urns are lozenges and escalloped patterns, with strongly projecting ribs, much decorated; the inside of the mouth of these vessels is usually ornamented with much care. In these particulars some analogy may be noticed amongst the sepulchral vessels found in Northumberland, preserved in the museum of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle and that formed at Alnwick Castle by the Duke of Northumberland. A certain resemblance may also be traced in the urns found in North Britain. The examples found at Ballon Hill surpass for the most part in richness and preservation those hitherto found in Ireland. The facts here given will suffice to shew the very curious character of the interments; a full account of Mr. Smith's investigations there will be published, as we believe, by the Kilkenny Archaeological Society, with representations of the urns.
The description of the cist enclosing a diminutive urn with bones of small size, probably those of a child, with one of large dimensions, will recall to our readers the interesting relation by the Hon. W. O. Stanley, of the interment at Forth Dafarch, Holyhead Island, in 1848. (Journal, vol. vi. p. 226.) The deposit of the burnt remains of an adult, it will be remembered, were there found with those of an infant, placed in a kind of rude cist and in separate urns; this interment was moreover supposed to be a vestige of the Irish, to whose predatory incursions the coasts of Anglesea and adjacent parts were much exposed.
Mr. Henry O'Neill stated that Mr. Richardson Smith had subsequently prosecuted his researches in co. Carlow with great success, and had succeeded in preserving a large number of beautiful urns. The sepulchral chamber rudely formed with stones had been noticed in other ancient Irish interments; and one of the most remarkable examples is the cromlech discovered in a tumulus in the Phœnix Park, Dublin, known by popular tradition as the "Hill of the Mariners." The bodies had been deposited unburnt; near the heads of each were a number of small shells, the Nerita littoralis, perforated to form necklaces.[1] They might, however, have served as a kind of currency like the strings of cowries in Africa.
Mr. O'Neill desired to bring anew before the Institute the important class of remains of a later age, the sculptured crosses to which he had invited attention on a former occasion, and to which the notice of antiquaries had recently been attracted by the exhibition at Dublin of several casts of these remarkable early Christian monuments, which have since been transferred to the Sydenham collection. Mr. O'Neill produced a series of "rubbings" from the most characteristic examples, namely the stone crosses of Graignamanagh, Kells, Graigue, Monasterboice, Kilklispeen, &c., and some of the plates prepared for the forthcoming second part
- ↑ See an account of this remarkable tomb in Mr. Wakeman's Handbook of Irish Antiquities, p. 9.
