EARLY MAN Charlestown ; x a bronze ring at Cardinham ; s a bronze dagger 6| in. long, with two rivets, at Angrowse ; 3 a similar dagger with two rivets 4$ in. long, at Harlyn. 4 These and a celt having the appearance of copper from one of the barrows at Pelynt; 5 a metal spear head with two rivets which ' when cut shone like brass' from another ; some bits of brass (?) 'supposed to be parts of a helmet and the point of a brazen sword ' from Maen ; 8 and two bronze bracelets from a barrow at Peninnis Head, St. Mary's, Scilly, 7 practically complete the list. For although Mr. J. Couch mentions 8 that the remains of a sword with the handle well preserved have been found ' in a tumulus in Cornwall,' he does not mention either the time or place, and there is no other record of any such discovery. Objects of stone are even more scarce, a few flint arrow-heads,' scrapers, and chips ; a curious little perforated hammer of greenstone from one of the Pelynt barrows, 10 and an equally curious axe of granite about 4 in. long from Trevalga ; u a cement button from Boscreggan ; 12 a whetstone and some stone celts from Tregeseal," are all the barrows have yielded of which records have been kept, except the Roman coins, the presence of which affords evidence of the time when the barrows were being made and used. Several discoveries of Roman coins in the barrows have been recorded from time to time, 1 * but as the evidence was not altogether satisfactory they were regarded with a certain degree of scepticism until the author of Naenia Cornubiae opened the barrow on the south-west end of Morvah Hill in i863. 16 There, inside the kist vaen, Mr. W. C. Borlase found ' several Roman coins,' one of them a ' middle brass ' of Constantine, and he states ' that from the position of these coins, their distance from the surface, and the construction of the kist itself, it is quite impossible that by any means they could have reached the situation in which they were found after the covering stone had been once set in its place.' In this barrow was an urn containing burnt bones, placed in the usual type of kist vaen. Except for the fact that it was ' con- structed of several layers of stones fitted together one over the other without mortar, forming as it seemed a cone over the entire tumulus,' there was nothing to distinguish the barrow from the general character of the majority. This find, recorded at the time and made by a man whose great experience in opening Cornish barrows renders his account unquestionable, induces a corresponding faith in the probability of the earlier and less authentic records, one of which contained in a letter from Tonkin to Dr. Gibson, dated the 4 August, 1733, and quoted by Dr. Borlase, 16 is worth special mention as Borlase, Natn. Corn. 188. * Joura. Roy. ln$t. Cornw. iv (1875), 2I 4- Borlase, Naen. Corn. 236 ; Evans, Stone Imp. 314 ; Bronze Imp. 243, now in Truro Museum. Journ. Roy. Inst. Cornw. x (1890), 206. 4 Journ. Roy. Inst. Cornw. (1845), 34. Borlase, Antiq. 237 ; Borlase, Naen. Corn. 79. Journ. Roy. Inst. Cornw. (1863), 50 ; Borlase, Naen. Corn. 162, now in Truro Museum. Journ. Roy. Init. Cornio. (1845), 34. Tregiffian, Borlase, Naen. Corn. 107 ; Boscreggan, Journ. Roy. Inst. Cornw. vi (1879), 201 ; Pelynt, Journ. Roy. Inst. Cornw. (1845), 34 ; Botrea, Tram. Penz. Nat. Hist, and Antiq. Sac. i, 234 ; Edmonds, The Land's End District, 33 ; Borlase, Naen. Corn. 36, 134 ; Bosporthennis, Borlase, Naen. Corn. 286. 10 Journ. Roy. Inst. Cornw. (1845), 34. " Borlase, Naen. Corn. 87. " Journ. Roy. Inst. Cornw. vi (1879), IO1 > Evans, Stone Imp. 455. 13 Borlase, Naen. Corn. 131 ; Trans. Penz. Nat. Hist, and Antiq. Soc. (1880-1), 20 ; Journ. Roy. Inst. Cornw. vi (1879), 191 ; Evans, Stone Imp. 84, 269. Two small squared oblong whetstones were found with the urn at Brane Common, Borlase, Naen. Corn. 213; one is now in Penzance Museum. " Borlase, Antiq. 306 ; C. S. Gilbert, Hist. Survey, i, 193 ; Drew, Hist. i, 377. 15 Borlase, Naen. Corn. 247. 16 Borlase, Antiq. 300 ; Borlase, Naen. Corn. 268. 363
