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OCTOBER, 1874.)
ARCHÆOLOGICAL NOTES.
277
“Eka Suthi" are the first words of an in scription frequently written over doors leading to tombs, and Mr. Taylor, with great probability, interprets them as meaning "Here is the tomb" of so and so, and observes, “It is probable that the Turanian word which underlies suthi will mean either to burn or to bury; hence suthi meant originally place of cremation,' and, next, "a tomb.'"* The word "suthina' is also frequent on statues, dishes, and votive offerings found in the tombs, and meant, Mr. Taylor thinks, originally a burnt-offering, a sacrifice, and, next, any object put in a tomb. It is difficult not to see some connection between this and sati, the famous Indian widow-burning custom once so general, the origin of which has never been distinctly traced. The Vedas know nothing of it: it is not an Aryan rite, and the Brahmans, when pressed for authority for it, had to forge texts. There are instances of superior conquering races adopting and even consecrating some of the worst customs of inferior peoples subdued by them, from policy or the corruption of manners engendered by conquest, and this may be one. Mr. Taylor has some remarks on "eka," which he interprets, and no doubt correctly, to mean "here :" in the Dravidian or Turanian language Telugu, spoken in the northern districts of Madras, here and there are ikkāda and akkāda, not distantly analogous to the Etruscan word.
A thread of connection is also found in a different field of research. Although pre-historic megalithic remains are scattered more or less abundantly over all other European countries, in Italy only one group has hitherto been discovered, and as that country has long been explored by antiquaries it is not probable that more will be found. At Saturnia, in the midst of the old Etruscan territory, there is a large assemblage of dolmens or kistvaens, and from the account given of them in Mr. Denniss's Ancient Cities of Etruriat it is evident that they closely resemble the kistvaens, which, singly, in groups, or in great cemeteries, exist so profusely in Central and Southern India, and have been often described, by Colonel Meadows Taylor and others. From Mr. Denniss's description, it is plain that the Etrurian group, just as • Dr. Donaldson (Varron, p. 209) translates ekakuthi
This is the mourning,' connecting futhi with the Icelandic sut, grief. The Earl of Crawford counecte it with Suio-Gothic kaette and ketti, a grave;' the hethis or 'bed' of Ulphilas, and the Greek KOLTN, a sleeping-place'; and
the Indian, consists of sepulchral chambers, generally more than half underground, formed of four huge slabs, one at each side and each end, set upright, covered with vast capstones, and, as in India, often divided lengthwise at the bottom into two compartments. Mr. Fergusson gives a woodcut of one of them from Mr. Denniss's book, but lately I had an opportunity of seeing a careful pen-and-ink drawing of a large portion of the Etruscan group by Captain S. P. Oliver, the distinguished archæologist, who has minutely examined the Mediterranean antiquities. The drawing was on a large scale and very elaborate, and I was struck by the complete coincidence of the remains represented with remains I have been familiar with in Southern India. The Saturnian megaliths are in a forest, and the drawing might very well have stood for many a group existing in my mind's eye in jangles on the Koimbator and Maisur frontier, in Salem, and elsewhere. It was not mere general resemblance,-it was identity. There were the tombs, some half-sunk in the earth, some rising higher : on some the capstones undisturbed, on others tilted or awry; and they appeared to be in just the same stage of antiquity and dislocation as the tombs in India. I could learn nothing of their contents. Though calling the group Etrurian, of conrse there is nothing to connect it with the Etruscans except situation. Here, however, in their ancient territory, is the only example known in Italy of remains distinctively Turanian; existing in Asia only where Turanian or Mongol peoples have existed, and one might speculate whether, on the hypothesis of an Asiatic origin of the Etruscans, the earliest settlers might not have brought with them their rude megalithic tombbuilding habits, which may have developed into those wonderful sepulchral chambers, filled with exquisite objects of art, which have been discovered around the famous old Etruscan cities, as the arts in their myriad forms and applications have widened upwards from the flipt knife, the clay bead, and the rough wooden club.
IX.-Holed Dolmene. The holes or apertures so frequently observed in the end slabs of kistvaens or dolmens havo suggests a similar derivation for 'Kit's Cotty'-or Coity.. house.-ED.
+ Quoted by Mr. Fergusson at page 391 of his work Rude Stone Monuments.
I See Ind. Ant. vol. II. pp. 223 et seqq.
