132

'CARAVANSERAI' BY ROAD-HEAD

Chrono-
logical
discrep-
ancy be-
tween
Cretan
and
Italian
hut-urns.

Northern
group,
still later.

hut-urns, with posts around supporting the eaves. The two-posted specimen
reproduced in Fig. 66 presents on either side curving objects that seem to be
intended for serpents and is possibly a rustic shrine of the Snake Goddess.1 Or
was the rounded object beneath the eaves in this case her baetylic stone ?2

In spite of the curious correspondence, extending even to details, of the
Minoan hut-urns with the Italian group, it would appear safest to regard
them as of independent outgrowth from a parallel type of primitive
habitations, though they very likely point
to a new ethnic intrusion. The urn con-
taining the Goddess shows decorative
elements still predominantly dependent on
the latest Minoan phase. It can hardly be
brought down later than the close of the
twelfth century B.C., and is separated thus by
over a century from the earliest examples
from Latium or Etruria. The geographical
areas to which the two groups respectively
belong are themselves sufficiently remote,

nor have any intermediate connexions come to light. Such an independent
development is in fact borne out by the occurrence, within the European area,
of another group equally disconnected by time and space from those of Crete
or of Early Iron Age Italy. This is the series of hut-shaped cinerary urns
found in a region of North Germany3 chiefly between the Harz and the
Elbe, and, indeed, largely corresponding with the Mother-Country of the
Anglo-Saxon race. These urns are also of rounded form with gabled roofs
and with round doorways, showing a perforated ear-shaped projection on
either side, as in the case of the Italic and Cretan examples. Other
special forms of round and oval hut-urns have been found in Sweden,4
where they go back to the Fifth Period of the Scandinavian Bronze

Fig. 66. Round Hut with
Snakes (?) on Amygdaloid Bead-
seal.

1 See P. ofM., i, p. 675.

2 This suggestion is due to Monsieur
Th^ophile Homolle.

* G. C. F. Lisch, Meckknb.Jahrb., 1849, 312,
&c.; Virchow, Abh. d. Berliner Acad., 1883,
p. 985 seqq., and cf. Z.f. Ethnologie, 1880,
Verh., p. 297 seqq. The comparatively late
Iron Age date of these house-urns is shown by
the fact that they are already associated with
the T-shaped fibula of the S.E. European
province (Waatsch, &c). They occur sporadi-

cally as far as Mecklenburg and Bornholm.

4 See Dr. C. A. Boethius's article on ' Primi-
tive House Types', B.S.A., xxiv, p. 164 seqq.
Hut-urns from Scania and Smaland are there
illustrated (p. 165, Fig. 1, a, b). A remark-
able hut-urn found by Montelius in a barrow
at Hammar in Scania, belonging to his Fifth
Bronze Age Period, has painted representa-
tions of posts around (pp. cit., p. 165, Fig. 1).
That from Smalle (a in inset) shows a system
of fastening the door with a bar passed through