On the various forms of the so-called 'Celtic' cranium / by Professor Rolleston.

  • Rolleston, George, 1829-1881.
Date:
[1868]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the various forms of the so-called 'Celtic' cranium / by Professor Rolleston. 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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    VARIOUS FORMS OF THE SO-CALLED CELTIC CRANIUM. Is'o this as from other circumstances detailed above, the hypothesis of a battle will not account for the facts of these burials. Many of the skulls possess tho subquadrate general outline combined with smoothly swelling and ele- gantly rounded individual contours which are described as characteristic of the Roman cranium; and the locality renders the admixture of Roman soldiers by no means an impossible supposition. I am not acquainted, though professed archaeologists may be, with any account of a cemetery exactly resembling this in Great Britain; but the following account which 4k er. Akad. Wien. Phil. Hist Class. 1858, Bd. 29, lift. 1, p. 166) of a variety of grave mounds found in Germany and containing unburnt bodies may be compared advantageously with the imperfect account I have given above of the Dinnington Tumulus. His words are, “ Manehmal vermisst man an den aufgedeckteu Gerippen die gewolmliche sorgfaltige Behandlung der Todten; sic scheinen nur nacli- lassig hingelegt odor hingeworfen. (Keller, Grabhugel in Burjhttzli bei Zurich; ebd. Heloet. Heidengraber und Todten huge/, p. 16). Wenn die Gebeine vollig uber einem Haufen liegen. wiein einem Tumulus bei Biewer in Luxembourg und einem Heidenbuek bei Ossingen in Thurgau wird man annehmen nmssen dassderTodte sitzend bestattet wiirde; in beiden Fallen zeigt das Grab nicht die mindeste Spur ciner spatferen Stoning. {Piiblicat Soc. Hist. Luxembourg, vn. 106. Keller, Helvet. heidengraber. 18). The skeletons after the removal of the stones which had covered them were reinterred in the earth, and it was only after the second disinterment that, through the kindness of the owner of the soil, they came into my hands.