him to a common grave. Such, at least, is probable, from the description, by Herodotus, of the funerals of the kings of the Scythians, who by modern critics are regarded as an Indo-European people,[1] and perhaps as nearly allied to the Celtic as to the Teutonic races. From this passage, also, we may perhaps derive some light as to the mode of burial among those rude Celtic tribes, by whom probably the long-chambered barrows of Western Britain were raised. This applies not merely to the immolation of victims, practised alike by both people, but also to the thatched roof erected by the Scythians over the body of the king, a similar structure to which, when decayed, may have given rise to the black stratum of earth observed in the chambered barrow at Kennet, and in most of the long barrows of Wiltshire.[2] From the same historian it is known that among some of the Thracian tribes, the wife supposed to have been most loved by the deceased was slain on the sepulchral mound, and buried in it with her husband.[3] In what manner the Thracian widows were slain is not described. Those of the Scythian chiefs were strangled; whilst the condition of at least two skulls in the Kennet tumulus makes it probable that among these Western Celts death was caused by cleaving the skull with a sword[4] or hatchet, perhaps of stone. Evidence had been previously obtained from the barrows of Wiltshire of this mode of immolation of funereal victims; and it is remarkable that two out of three instances which may be cited are in the case of long barrows. In 1801 Mr. Cunnington opened the long barrow near Heytesbury, called "Bowls' Barrow," in which he found several skeletons crowded together at the east end, the skull of one of which "appeared to have been cut in two by a sword."[5] In a circular
- ↑ Rawlinson's Herodotus, 1858, vol. iii. Essay 2, Ethnography of the European Scyths.
- ↑ The passage in Herodotus (lib. iv. c. 71), though often quoted, deserves to be here given. After describing the rough embalmment of the body, and the savage cutting and maiming practised by the Scythians in token of mourning, the historian thus proceeds: "The body of the dead king is laid in the grave prepared for it, stretched upon a mattress; spears are fixed in the ground on either side of the corpse, and rafters stretched across above it to form a roof, which is covered with a thatching of osier twigs. In the open space around the body of the king, they bury one of his concubines, first killing her by strangling her, and also his cup-bearer, his cook, his groom, his lacquey, his messenger, some of his horses, firstlings of all his other possessions, and some golden cups, for they use neither silver nor brass. After this they set to work and raise a vast mound above the grave, all of them vying with each other, and seeking to make it as high as possible."
- ↑ Herod, lib. v. c. 5.
- ↑ The human victims of the Gauls, from the observation of whose death-throes future events were predicted, were slaughtered by striking with a sword on the back, above the diaphragm.—Diodorus, lib. v. c. 31; Strabo, lib. iv. c. 4, s. 5.
- ↑ Hoare, Ancient Wilts, vol. i. p. 87.
