Sidney Oldall Addy

“ In the history of a nation we see things, as it were, through a telescope; in local history we see them through a microscope. And the objects that we can see in the field of the smaller instrument may be quite as instructive and interesting as those which we can see in the field of the larger one. ”

“ That the ancient Northmen, like the modern Africans, were accustomed at one stage of their history, to break, twist, pierce, or otherwise damage the articles which they buried with their dead is apparent from great numbers of purposely damaged objects which are constantly being found in Scandinavian grave mounds. ”

“ The evidence shows that the interment at Crookes took place in the early Bronze Age. As showing the degree of civilization to which the people of that period had attained I may mention that they were familiar with the surgical operation of trepanning or trephining the skull. A single example of a trepanned skull was found a few years ago in the Island of Bute along with an urn decorated like the one found at Crookes and a small piece of thin bronze, but in France the fact has been established from a great number of cases. "Trepanning the human skull for therapeutic purposes," says Dr. ”

“ What the amulet made from a bit of human skull was to the prehistoric man that the amulet from a sheep's head is to the modern Hallamshire peasant. The later superstition is a lineal descendant of the older superstition. As man became less barbarous he modified his old belief in the efficacy of the charm, as he could not wholly cast it off. ”

“ Now I wish I could be so orderly as this old writer, because it is not easy to make either a beginning or an end of a subject when the facts which are known to us are very few, and the time is very far off. ”

“ If then the funeral rites of these modern Africans are found to resemble the rites of the old inhabitants of Great Britain in other respects is it not likely that the comparison will also hold with regard to the damaged poniard or "the hole pierced in the pot"? Is it not likely that the same religious custom of breaking the goods deposited with the dead once existed in England and for the same purpose ? ”

“ At these banquets, he informs us, "there was always plenty of meat, both roast and boiled, of which they partook 'rather after the fashion of lions,' for they would take up the joint and knaw at it; but if a man could not get the meat off, he would use his little bronze knife, which he kept in a separate sheath by the side of his sword or dagger." ”

“ If the deceased owned several slaves an enormous hole is dug for a grave. The slaves that were caught immediately on his death are now brought forward. They may be either cast into the pit alive, or the undertakers may cut all their throats. ”

“ In Africa the avowed object, at this very day, of breaking and damaging the cups and other offerings or goods buried with a dead man is to prevent "the witch," who is supposed to be answerable for his death, from coveting or using them. ”

“ Swords are cut on the edges, bent and twisted; shield bosses are dented or flattened; and jewels and other objects are entirely ruined, and the illustrations seen in these volumes will show how thorough the destruction was. Bent swords and shield bosses, etc., were sometimes placed over the cinerary urn, at other times they were put on their side." [7]
In a footnote he says, "In an urn in a mound near Veile, Jutland, was found a bent bronze poniard; and in another mound at Mors, Jutland, an urn containing burnt bones, and a bent bronze poniard." ”

“ Connected with the burning of the dead was the intentional damage done to objecls which were exposed to the heat of the funeral pyre. Special care seems to have been taken to render swords and other weapons thoroughly useless. ”