THE ANCIENT BRITON.

Ohinemuri Gazette, Volume XXII, Issue 2785, 3 May 1911, Page 2

THE ANCIENT BRITON.

Professor Boyd Dawkins, of the Manchester University, has thrown an interesting light on the discovery of ancient British relics at Lockley Manor, Welwyn, Hertfordshire, the residence of the late Mr George Edward Dering. The discovery was due to the latter's desire to live the life of a hermit He had a deep road cut, with the object of securing greater privacy and seclusion in his

residence. The excavation exposes traces of man in the earliest stages of his existence —a fossil elephant's tooth, and palaeothic implements that would in themselves fill the archaeologists with delight. The first expert eye to gaze upon the objects-was that of Professor Boyd Dawkins, who gave interesting details of the find in an interview with a representative of the Daily News.

" The relics," said the Professor, "were obtained from two distinct burials —graves dug in the gravel about four or five feet down. In one ot the graves were found a pair ot iron ' dogs.' I found that these merely formed a part of an iron framework, and in this frame-

work were a series of amphorae, or wine jars. So that the British chief," the Professor added, with a smile, "was buried in his wine cellar, or, rather, his wine cellar was buried with him."

" There was also," he continued, " a most beautiful Greek cup exquisitely chased of silver gilt. It seems clear that these beautiful works of art were made in Greece. The presence of the omphorae—l do not know whether they are Roman or Greek, but no doubt they came from the Mediterranean —implies an intercourse sufficently close between those countries and ancient Britain to allow the importation of wine."

By the pottery and metal work hoops around one of the buckets the date of burial is fixed as the period known in art as late Celtic, and in archaeological classification as the pre-histonc iron age. The relics have no doubt lain buried since the century before the Christian Era. The view that the iron dogs and the iron " cradle " found in the graves were part of the fitting of a fireplace, and that there was a symbolism attaching of these, as there was to the chariot buried with earlier warriors, was scouted by the Professor.

" This group of remains, " he said, "is of enormous importance. It brings home to us that Britian before the time of the Romans was in far closer touch with the civilised peoples of the Mediterranean than has hitherto been supposed. Incidentally it shows that the idea that the ancient Briton of the period was merely a painted savage is pure

nonsense."

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