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OCTOBER, 1877.]
SEPULCHRAL URNS IN SOUTHERN INDIA.
279
SEPULCHRAL URNS IN SOUTHERN INDIA.
BY THE Rr. Rev. BISHOP CALDWELL, D.D., LL.D. TAM anxious to obtain some information as of a skeleton were discovered. The skull was
I to the extent of the area within which found resting on the sternum, and on each side sepulchral urns, like those to which I am about of the sternum was a tibia. It appeared, thereto refer, are found, and I trust that some read- fore, as if the body had been doubled up and ers of the Antiquary will be so kind as to help forced in head foremost, though it was not me to obtain the information of which I am in clear how the shoulders could have got in. The search.
bones were of the consistence of ochre, and The urns I refer to are large earthenware jars crumbled to pieces when they were taken out. containing fragments of human bones, generally Nothing could be preserved but a piece of the in a very decayed state. They are of various skull and the teeth, which were those of an sizes, corresponding with the age of the person adult. Dr. Fry, Surgeon to the Resident of whose remains were to be disposed of. The Travancore, who was present at the finil, pointlargest I have found was eleven feet in circum- ed out that the molars had been worn down ference, and the smallest have been between four by eating grain, and that the edges of the front and five. The shape varies a little within certain teeth also had been worn down by biting some limits, so that I have not found any two per- kind of parched pulse. Afterwards, on exafectly alike, but the type generally adhered to mining the mouths of some natives, I found is that of the large earthen jars in Tamil kúnai) their front teeth worn down a little in the with which the people in this neighbourhoodsame manner, and, as they admitted, from the draw water for their cultivation. The urn is same cause. I have not noticed any distinct without handles, feet, rim, or cover. It swells trace of the bones in these urns having been out towards the middle and terminates in a caleined. point, so that it is only when it is surrounded In addition to human bones a few small with earth that it keeps an upright position. earthen vessels are found in 'most of the jars. The urns do much credit to the workmanship of Sometimes such vessels are arranged outside, the people by whom they were made, being instead of being placed inside. These vessels made of better-tempered clay, better burnt, and are of various shapes, all more or less elegant, much stronger than any of the pottery made in and all appear to have been highly polished. these times in this part of India. They would At first I supposed they had been glazed, but contain a human body easily enough in a doubled- I have been informed by Dr. Hunter, late of the up position, if it could be got inside, but the Madras School of Arts, that what I noticed was mouth is generally so narrow that it would ad- & polish, not a true glaze. Whatever it be, I mit only the skull, and one is tempted to con- have not noticed anything of the kind in the jecture that the body must have been cut into native pottery of these parts and these times. pieces before it was put into the urn, or that the In some cases the polish or glaze is black, and bones must have been collected and put in after the decay of these blackened vessels seems to the body had decayed. Generally decay is have given rise to the supposition that the bones found to havo advanced so far that these theo- had sometimes been calcined. ries can neither be verified nor disproved. On the accompanying plate are sketches of Fragments only of the harder bones remain, five of these little vessels. When these have and the urn seems to contain little more than been shown to natives, they say that No. 4 a mass of earth. In one instance I found the appears to have been an oil vessel, and No. 5 bones partially petrified, and therefore almost a spittoon. The use of No. 2, the vessel with perfect, though they had fallen asunder; but this the lid, is unknown. In these times such vessels was the large eleven-feet urn referred to above, wonld be made of bell-metal, not of pottery. We discovered at Korkei, so that in this instance may conclude that the object in view in placing it was conceivable that the body had been these vessels in the urn was that the ghost of placed in it entire. At Ilanji, near Kortalam, the departed might be supplied with the ghosts on opening an urn some traces of the shape of suitable vessels for eating and drinking out
