Sound of the Baskervilles White Paper Number 2:
Contents of an Ancient British Barrow

Stu Shiffman - August 12, 1996

"Here also I find an account of the Addleton tragedy and the singular contents of the ancient British barrow."
Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez

"The shape of the grave and the mound, barrow, or tomb above it varied. It might be shallow or deep, fenced against wild animals or leveled to hide it from cannibals, ghouls, and marauders. In the grave the body might be left sitting, squatting, or prone on side or back. The direction in which it was faced or headed was important and varied greatly ‹ Moslems towards Mecca, Christian Europeans towards the West, migrant tribes toward the homeland of their ancestors."
Funk & Wagnall¹s Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology & Legend

"The archaeologist found that she was faced with a long leaf-shaped mound about fifty to sixty yards long, pointing due north. Under her woolly hat her hairs were beginning to rise, and she broke into a trot, her moon-boots squelching in the saturated peat. The sheer size of it made her heart beat faster. If there really was a ship down there, and if anything at all was left of it, this was going to make the Mary Rose* look like a pedalo."
Tom Holt, Who¹s Afraid of Beowolf? (Macmillan, 1988)

"From the sand of an Anglo-Saxon burial ground at Sutton Hoo, a team of skilled excavators led by Charles W. Phillips extracted the richest archaeological treasure found anywhere in England. In 1939, equipped with trowels, tablespoons, and portable grids, they scraped away the highest mound at the site. Beneath the nine-foot-high barrow, the diggers discovered the remains of a wooden ship and the dazzling array of a monarch who had ruled in the seventh century A.D. Though his body was never recovered, and in fact may never have been buried here, the king¹s accoutrements gave evidence of a cosmopolitan civilization that imported luxuries from hundred of miles away ‹ a copper bowl from Egypt, silver bowls from Constantinople, gold coins from France."
Brian M. Fagan, The Adventure of Archaeology (National Geographic Society, 1985, 1989)

"...He went over to the bookshelf, picked out a volume more or less at random, and started to read. It was a collection of Victorian and Edwardian stories.

"A passing reference struck him. Something about a tragedy at Addleton and the singular contents of an ancient British barrow. Nothing more. Hm. Time travel?"
Poul Anderson, ³Time Patrol², Guardians of Time (Ballantine, 1960)

"It will be found to contain a greater amount of information respecting the primæval sepulchres of Britain, derived from actual excavations than has ever appeared in a single work..." Thomas Bateman, Ten Years' Diggings in Celtic & Saxon Grave Hills (1861)

The antiquarian Thomas Bateman, of Rowsley, Derbyshire, excavated more than 200 barrows in the Derbyshire and Staffordshire Peak District between 1843 and his death in 1861. Presented here is Bateman's own account of his excavations of some the 7th century barrow burials of the Peak Dwellers, extracted from Ten Years' Diggings and Vestiges:

On the 10th of September we opened the gravehill of a Saxon lady, at Wyaston, Derbyshire, the diameter of which is thirteen yards and the central height four feet; it is entirely of earth, overlaid with a few pebbles on the surface.

We began by cutting from the south side to the middle, where was no indication of interment, either upon or below the natural level; but it was seen that a grave had been made on the east side of our trench, where from the surface to a depth of two feet the earth was much darker than in other parts of the mound.

By digging in the direction thus indicated, we had the good fortune to discover the remains of a human skeleton, consisting merely of the enamel crowns of the teeth, which though themselves but scanty mementos of female loveliness, were accompanied by several articles indicating that the deceased was not unaccustomed to add the ornament of dress to the charms of nature. These comprise a handsome necklace of twenty-seven beads, a silver finger ring, silver earrings, and a circular brooch or fibula.

Five of the beads are of amber* , carefully rounded into a globular shape, the largest an inch in diameter; the remaining twenty-two (two of which are broken) are mostly small, and made of porcelain or opaque glass, very prettily variegated with blue, yellow, or red, on a white or red ground. The finger ring is made of thick silver wire, twisted into an ornamental knot at the junction of the ends.

The earrings are too slight and fragmentary for description. The fibula is a circular ring, ribbed on the front, an inch and a half in diameter, composed of a doubtful substance. The remains of the teeth show the person to have been rather youthful, and afford another instance of the extreme decay of the skeleton usual in Saxon deposits in this part of the country, whilst those which we have reason to reckon centuries more ancient are mostly well preserved.

A smaller barrow, at a short distance, was opened immediately after, affording nothing. It was composed of thin layers of differently coloured earth, amongst which dark brown, approaching to black, pre- dominated.

"ŒYou must excuse my lack of hospitality, but we really are frightfully busy. Fanatic German up in 1917 learned the time-travel secret from an unwary anthropologist, stole a machine, has come to London to assassinate Her Majesty. We¹re having the devil¹s own time finding him.¹

"ŒWill you?¹ asked Whitcomb.

"ŒOh, yes. But deuced hard work, gentlemen, especially when we must operate secretly. I¹d like to engage a private inquiry agent, but the only worthwhile one is entirely too clever. He operates on the principle that when one has eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. And time trafficking may not be too improbable for him.¹

"ŒI¹ll bet he¹s the same man who¹s working on the Addleton case, or will be tomorrow,¹ said Everard. ŒThat isn¹t important; we know he¹ll prove Rotherhithe¹s innocence. What matters is the strong probability that there¹s been hankpanky going on back in ancient British times.¹

"ŒSaxon, you mean,¹ corrected Whitcomb, who had checked on the data himself. ³Good many people confuse British and Saxon.¹²
Poul Anderson, ³Time Patrol², Guardians of Time (Ballantine, 1960)

Some Notes by Stu Shiffman on The Life and Archaeological Work of Lieutenant-General Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt Rivers, DCL, FRS, FSA *

General Pitt Rivers (1827-1900), a flamboyant polymath, was known as the father of scientific archaeology. He was influential in four fields during his lifetime: military training, anthropology, archaeology, and public education. Very little is known about his character and career. Yet this was a man with stormy family relationships, a career in the army, activities in public education, contributions to anthropology, and impact on the development of British archaeology. A controversial man whose methods and ideals have been much quoted but frequently misunderstood and misrepresented.

Archaeology was transformed from pure treasure-hunting and dilettante antiquarianism (recall that Dr. Henry Mortimer of Hound also had excavated a few barrows in his day) to its current status as a respected scientific discipline embracing many specialties by the work of a few great men. From the circus strongman Belzoni in Egypt to the publicity-conscious plunderings of Heinrich Schleimann at Troy, most 19th century excavation had been in search of the masterworks suitable for presentation in prestigious national and private collections. Pitt-Rivers pointed out that it is the study of the ordinary everyday things that helps us to reconstruct the past. far more that the rarer, valuable objects that were unusual even in their original point in space/time. To me, General Pitt-Rivers seemed an ideal brother-of- the-mind to Sherlock Holmes, and a likely person to have called in the consulting detective in a matter of excavatory mystery.

³You know my method. It is founded on the observance of trifles.²
Sherlock Holmes, in the ³Boscombe Valley Mystery²

Born Augustus Henry Lane Fox (he later appended the Pitt-Rivers to satisfy the requirements of his vast inheritance), he was a tall moody man with a quick temper. Firearms were his specialty in the beginning. While still a captain in 1851, he attended the Great Exhibition (that pet project of the Prince Consort) and was deeply affected by the sub-text of material progress, of ever-improving technology (whether in steam-driven mill engines or in the devices of war). He began to collect muskets and other antique and primitive weapons from around the world, and organized his collection to show development or ³evolution² (if I may use the term) of form. In 1864, Lane Fox surveyed prehistoric earthworks in Ireland, and so began his interest in archaeology. He visited the barrow excavations of the pioneering Canon William Greenwell in Yorkshire, and soon returned to London filled with excitement and determination to conduct his own excavations. He went on military half-pay, and started digging at the Cissbury hill fort in southeastern England.

"Tedious as it may appear to some to dwell on the discovery of odds and ends that have, no doubt, been thrown away by the owners as rubbish . . . yet it is by the study of such trivial details that archaeology is mainly dependent for determining the date of earthworks."
Lieutenant General Augustus Pitt-Rivers

Pitt-Rivers approached an excavation as a military campaign. Each site had to be excavated in full, with complete records of each step. This included the precise location of each artifact uncovered, and no object was too trivial to consider. He employed a multi-disciplined research team ‹ crews were supervised by a trained assistant and two sub-assistants, one a draftsman and illustrator and the other an expert at model-making. He also developed and extended the layer-by-layer stratigraphic excavation techniques developed before him, and published his findings quickly and in comprehensive detail (which is more than can be said for some digs today!).

Rising to the rank of lieutenant general in 1882, Lane Fox now Pitt-Rivers was appointed the next year as inspector of ancient monuments. He had recently inherited a substantial estate, including part of Cranborne Chase in Dorset. He had wealth, the confidence born in his distinguished military career, and plenty of time. Pitt-Rivers began to excavate the mounds and monuments on his lands.

"It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important." Sherlock Holmes, in "A Case of Identity"

"Every detail," wrote the general, "should be recorded in the manner most conducive to facility of reference. I have endevored to record the results of these excavations in such a way that the whole of the evidence may be available for those who are concerned to go into it² He had "before" and "after" models of his sites constructed, built a special museum to display his finds (with a special picnic grounds for visitors), and even marked his filled-in trenches with special medallions (see below). He also wrote that "Superfluous precision may be regarded as a fault on the right side".

NOTES & Bibliography

* Tudor flagship sunk in Portsmouth harbor, and recovered in an inspiring effort, and much of it in an astonishing state of preservation, in the 1980¹s.

* Likely to have come as tradegoods from the Baltic region.

* with reference to: 1. the 1991 bio by Mark Bowden

2. The Practical Archaeologist by Jane McIntosh, (1986)

3. The Adventure of Archaeology, by Brian M. Fagan (National Geographic Society, 1985, 1989)

4. Tracing Archaeology¹s Past: The Historiography of Archaeology, ed. by Andrew L. Christenson (Southern Illinois University Press, 1989)

5. Quest for the Past, by Brian J. Fagan (Addison-Wesley, 1978)

6. Megalithomania, by John Michell (Cornell University Press, 1982)