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XXVI. On Mortuary Urns found at Stade-on-the-Elbe, and other parts of North Germany, now in the Museum of the Historical Society of Hanover
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 January 2012
Extract
Among the many interesting remains of heathendom, which, to the great benefit of comparative Archaeology, you have recorded in your work on Saxon Pagandom, none have struck me more than certain vessels and utensils found at Eye in Suffolk, and described by you in Part xi. plate xxii. compared with Part ii. plate iv. As works of art they have not indeed much to recommend them; nor are they valuable for the sake of the material of which they are formed. And yet they are more than commonly remarkable. They are so, not only on account of their comparative rarity in this country, which renders them attractive merely as curiosities; but of their intimate connection with objects identical in form, which have been discovered in various parts of North Germany. You are, no doubt, aware that thousands of urns have been exhumed in that part of the continent within the last two hundred years; but, of them all, none approach more nearly in form to the English than those excavated last year at Stade-on-the-Elbe. A comparison of them with those which you have engraved, and those which we find in the “Saxon Obsequies,” and other English works of archaeological interest, will, I trust, not be without value for you. It will serve to shew how complete, even in this matter of detail, was the resemblance between the Saxons in England, and those who remained behind in their old seats upon the Elbe.
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- Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1855
References
page 270 note a Nearly a tenth of the whole Collection of urns in the Museum.
page 271 note a There has been a good deal of nonsense talkedin England about sacrifices and the like. Once for all, let it be known that thesacrificial flesh of the Germans was boiled, not roasted, and was eaten on the spot by those who partook of the sacrifice; which, at stated seasons, the chiefs and kings, if not the whole people, were expected to do. When Hakonr the Good was in bad odour with the Northmen, on suspicion of Christianity, he was made to pass the broth of boiled horseflesh under his nostrils, and the people consented to take this as evidence that he had communicated according to the heathen rite.
page 273 note a Something similar, from Sussex, is found onan urn from the Mantell collection in the Brit. Mus.
page 274 note a The bottoms of all these urns, like those in the British Museum, are so imperfectly made, that scarcely one stands really upright. There is no trace of a flat surface; but every base is irregular, probably made in the palm of the hand. There is a curious instance in Von Estorff's “Heidnische Alterthümer” (which contains numerous examples of urns aud implements found in the Luneburg district), of an urn bearing the distinet mark of a man's hand on the side. I do not remember this urn myself in his collection, but his draughtsman was in general accurate, and I am pretty sure that the impression was there. The urn, no doubt, was from some cause left unfinished.