Miscellaneous

Manton Round Barrow
Round Barrow(s)

With ref to Rhiannon’s entry – first of all, you haven’t got the wrong barrow. The MAGIC entry is wrong, and the appropriate persons have already been made aware.

Maud Cunnington published her excavation report twice – in the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History magazine vol 35, 1907-8, pp1-20 and in The Reliquary new series vol 13, 1907, 28-46. As far as I can tell, both are identical.

She states quite clearly that the body was lying on the old ground surface, under the mound and in a roughly central position. There was no grave pit. This isn’t unusual. The report includes a sketch showing the skeleton laid out on the ground and the positions of the various grave goods.

With reference to the sex of the deceased, the bone report by Dr John Beddoe (author of ‘The Races of Britain’) isn’t exactly a classic of its kind, but as the bones were re-interred in the restored mound we have no way of checking if he was correct.