against this view. Nothing is more likely than that a people should like to bury their dead, on high places, where their tombs can be seen from afar. In fact, there does not seem much to be said against this theory, except that no sepulchral remains have been found in them. It is true that De la Marmora found a skeleton buried in one at Iselle,[1] and apparently so placed that the internment must have taken place before the tower was built, or at all events finished; but the presence of only one corpse in two thousand nurhags tells strongly against the theory, as where one was placed more would have been found had this form of interment been usual, and amidst the hundreds of ruined and half-ruined nurhags some evidence must have been found had any of the usual sepulchral usages prevailed. To my mind the conclusion seems inevitable that, if they were tombs, they were those of a people who, like the Parsees of the present day, exposed their dead to be devoured by the birds of the air. If there is one feature in the nurhags more consistent or more essential than another, it is that of the stairs or ramps that give access to their platforms. It shows, without doubt, that, whether for defence, or worship, or burial, the platform was the feature for which the edifice was erected, and there it must have been that its purposes were fulfilled. But is it possible that such a practice ever prevailed in Sardinia? It is, of course, precipitate to answer that it did. But the custom is old. Anything so exceptional among modern usages is not the invention of yesterday, and it may have been far more prevalent than it now is, and it may in very ancient times have been brought by some Eastern colonists to this Western isle. I dare hardly suggest that it was so; but this is certain, that such towers would answer in every respect perfectly to the "Towers of Silence" of the modern Persians, and the little side chambers in the towers would suit perfectly as receptacles of the denuded bones when the time arrived for collecting them.
One argument against their being sepulchres has been drawn from the fact that frequently a different class of graves, called giants' tombs, is found in their immediate proximity. The conclusion I would draw from this is in a contrary sense. These giants' tombs are generally long graves of neatly fitted stones,
- ↑ 'Voyage,' p. 152.
