"Tumulus" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... interesting old place we have fallen for our retirement. The walls of the room in which I am writing are five feet thick. The old part of the house must have been an Abbey Grange; the cellars run into a British tumulus, the oaks in the grounds must many of them be as old as the Conquest, and the site of the parish church was a place of pilgrimage probably before Christianity. Stone coffins are turned over on the ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... Bayou, the extreme width of the group being about 200 yards. The largest mound, standing on the edge of the terrace, was 6 feet high and 75 feet across. On the original surface, over a small area at the central part, were decayed fragments of human bones; so this was probably erected as a tumulus. The others were much smaller; from a foot to 3 feet high, and 30 to 50 feet in diameter. Six of these, varying in size from the largest to the smallest, were thoroughly excavated within the original margin and down to ...
— Archeological Investigations - Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 76 • Gerard Fowke
... the sea. At a distance, the farm-steading looked like a little oasis of green, amid the grey stony slopes that surrounded it, and on a nearer approach not unlike the vestiges of a Celtic earthwork, with the tumulus of a hero or two in the centre, but the mounds turned out to be nothing more than the grass roofs of the house and offices, and the banks and dykes but circumvallations round the plot of most carefully cleaned meadow, called the "tun," which always surrounds every Icelandic farm. This word "tun" ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... the inside of Mortlake church, a boy undertook to fetch the key from the house of the sexton. In the mean time I examined around me the humble monuments raised by affection to the memory of the dead. Here were the pyramid, the obelisk, and the tumulus, in their most diminutive forms. Here lay decomposed the mineral parts of those ancestors from whom the contemporary generation have sprung. Yes, said I, we truly are all of one nature, and one family; and we suffer a common fate! We burst as germs into organization, we swell by ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... Sheep's Tor, is rich in a variety of antiquities, for it has three stone rows, a large tumulus, a kistvaen, and a later relic—a miner's blowing-house. One of the avenues is two hundred and sixty feet long, and one is double for a part of the way, and each of the three starts from a menhir, or long stone. Near Merivale Bridge are two double stone rows, but the stones are small. Close by ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... vitality were infused into the proceedings by a conflict with the police, which would naturally atone for many shortcomings. The meeting at Tiernaur was held in the midst of magnificent scenery, and that on Sheehane was equally well selected. From the top of the hill, which is crowned by a large tumulus, the country around for many miles lay spread like a map; and, what was of more immediate importance, the small additional hill afforded a convenient spot for posting the orators and displaying the banners of the various ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... brake of tall reeds which grew out into the shallow water for quite a mile from the shore and was only pierced here and there with paths made by the hippopotami when they came to the mainland at night to feed. From a high mound which looked exactly like a tumulus and, for aught I know, may have been one, however, the blue waters beyond were visible, and in the far distance what, looked at through glasses, appeared to be a tree-clad mountain top. I asked Komba what it might be, and he answered ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... Arabia, sacred to Osiris and Dionusus; they were all by the Greeks esteemed places of sepulture. Through this mistake many different nations had the honour attributed to them of these Deities being interred in their country. The tumulus of the Latines was mistaken in the same manner. It was originally a sacred hillock; and was often raised before temples, as an altar; such as I have before described. It is represented in this ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant
... expected that Caesar would be contented with an escort of the Aeduan cavalry. Caesar, knowing better than to trust himself with Gauls, mounted his 10th legion, and with them proceeded to the spot which Ariovistus had chosen. It was a tumulus, in the centre of a large plain equidistant from the two camps. The guard on either side remained two hundred paces in the rear. The German prince and the Roman general met on horseback at the mound, ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... near our halting-place, we saw a tumulus, which was apparently of recent construction (within a year at most). It would seem that some person of consideration among the natives had been buried in it, from the exterior marks of a form which had certainly been observed in the construction of the tomb and surrounding seats. ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley
... Danish skull from a tumulus at Borreby: one-third of the natural size. From a camera lucida drawing by ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... home a most kingly site. Ancient kings had raised great pyramids of artificial stone over their graves. Amenhetep, perhaps the greatest and most powerful Pharaoh of them all, chose to have a natural pyramid for his grave, a mountain for his tumulus. The illustration shows us the tomb of this monarch, opening out of the side of one of the most imposing hills in the Western Valley. No other king but Amenhetep rested beneath this hill, which thus marks his ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... was not moonlight illuminating the weird tumulus, but the glare of a battery of searchlights, suggesting, as Gootes irreverently remarked, the opening of a new supermarket. During my absence the National Guard had arrived and focused the great incandescent beams on the mound which now covered ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... since Mr. Andrew Lang gave, in a weekly journal (The Sketch), illustrations of the most famous of all the Prince's hiding-places—viz. the cave in Glenmoriston, Inverness-shire.[1] The cave, we are told, is "formed like a tumulus by tall boulders, but is clearly a conspicious object, and a good place wherein to hunt for a fugitive. But it served its turn, and as another cave in the same district two miles off is lost, perhaps it is not so conspicious as it seems." ...
— Secret Chambers and Hiding Places • Allan Fea
... sepulchers of their kindred. Tribes that have passed generations exiled from the abodes of their ancestors, when by chance they have been traveling in the vicinity, have been known to turn aside from the highway, and guided by wonderfully accurate tradition have crossed the country for miles to some tumulus, buried perhaps in woods, where the bones of their tribe were anciently deposited, and there have passed hours in silent meditation. Influenced by this sublime and holy feeling, the sachem whose mother's tomb had been violated gathered his ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... were halls for song and dance! Spiders' webs the carved pillars intertwine, The green gauze now is also pasted on the straw windows! What about the cosmetic fresh concocted or the powder just scented; Why has the hair too on each temple become white like hoarfrost! Yesterday the tumulus of yellow earth buried the bleached bones, To-night under the red silk curtain reclines the couple! Gold fills the coffers, silver fills the boxes, But in a twinkle, the beggars will all abuse you! While you deplore ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... yet risen, but the east was all tinged with red and gold and had dissipated the haze which usually, in the early morning, screens the blue of the sky from the eyes. It was quiet. . . . The birds were hardly yet awake . . . . The corncrake uttered its clear note, and far away above a little tumulus, a sleepy kite floated, heavily flapping its wings, and no other living creature could be seen all ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... the down, overlooking this curious vale of prehistoric terraces, rise the twin heights of Ogbury Barrows, familiar landmarks to all the country side around for many miles. One of them is a tall, circular mound or tumulus surrounded by a deep and well-marked trench: the other, which stands a little on one side, is long and narrow, shaped exactly like a modern grave, but of comparatively gigantic and colossal proportions. Even the little children ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... Miss Susan can possibly do with all this trumpery in the hereafter, but, if I survive her, I shall certainly insist upon a compliance with her wishes, even though it involve the erection of a tumulus as prodigious ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... Glastonbury, the treasurie of the carcases of so famous, and so many persons (Qu olim mater sanctorum dicta es, & ab alijs, tumulus sanctorum, quam ab ipsis discipulis Domini, dificatam fuisse venerabilis habet Antiquorum authoritas) how lamentable is thy case nowe? howe hath hypocrisie and pride wrought thy desolation? though I omit here the names of very many other, both excellent holy men, and mighty ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... and village-cotted hill, is (Flanked by the Hellespont, and by the sea) Entombed the bravest of the brave, Achilles; They say so—(Bryant[249] says the contrary): And further downward, tall and towering still, is The tumulus—of whom? Heaven knows! 't may be Patroclus, Ajax, or Protesilaus— All heroes, who if living ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... not stint themselves either in time, or in men, or other cattle, when engaged in erecting such monuments, we know even from comparatively modern times. Under Harold Harfagr, two kings spent three whole years in erecting one single tumulus; and Harold Blatand is said to have employed the whole of his army and a vast number of oxen in transporting a large stone which he wished to place on his mother's tomb. As to the second question, we can readily understand how, after the supporters had once been fixed in the ground, ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... in Dolmens, and a great many Roman coins. It is the collection of a life, made by an enthusiast, and ought to be acquired by the museum of Aix. In the mairie at Trets is an urn full of calcined bones, in very good condition. It was found by two boys some little while ago in a tumulus on the side of the road to Puyloubier. The farmer whose land it was on, hearing of the discovery, and concluding that something precious had been found, brought an action against the youthful archaeologists, and strove to recover ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... the wold, on the green road, with its thorn-thickets, until the chalk began to show white among the ruts; and we were soon at the top. A little to the left of us appeared, in the middle of the pasture, a tiny round-topped tumulus that I had often seen from a lower road, but never visited. It was fresher and cooler up here. On arriving at the place we found that it was not a tumulus at all, but a little outcrop of the pure chalk. It had steep, scarped sides ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... was to see the most weird and horrible thing, I think, of all that I beheld in that future age. This whole space was as bright as day with the reflection of the fire. In the centre was a hillock or tumulus, surmounted by a scorched hawthorn. Beyond this was another arm of the burning forest, with yellow tongues already writhing from it, completely encircling the space with a fence of fire. Upon the ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... homewards towards Eastbourne stay awhile by the tumulus on the slope. There are others hidden among the furze; butterflies flutter over them, and the bees hum round by day; by night the nighthawk passes, coming up from the fields and even skirting the sheds and houses below. The rains beat on them, and the storm drives the ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... shall be the victim rendered to death-stroke, Whenas the earthern tomb on lofty tumulus builded Shall of the stricken maid receive limbs white as the snow-flake. Speed ye, the well-spun woof out-drawing, speed ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... raging power.—Ver. 299. Pausanias tells us, that in the time of Antigonus, king of Macedonia, warm waters burst from the earth, through the action of subterranean fires, near the city of Troezen. Perhaps the 'tumulus' here mentioned sprang up at ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... they were generally pretty successful, supplementing and eking out their ordinary rations very largely. The day previous their larder had been recruited by three iguanas' eggs, a brush turkey ('Megapodius Tumulus'), and nine turkeys' eggs. The rain came down as usual at intervals during the day, which, added to the almost incessant rain of the four previous days, brought the river down during the night, increasing its volume and current so much as to make ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine
... month (which showed that many weeks had not elapsed since the death of the deceased) and the initials G. D. were all that was engraved upon the stone. Beside this tomb was one of a more pompous description, to the memory of a Mrs. Douglas, which had with the simple tumulus nothing in common, unless the initial letter of the surname corresponding with the latter initial on the neighbouring gravestone, might authorize any connection between them, not supported by that similitude of style usually found in the cenotaphs of the same family: the one, indeed, might ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... stunted bush had been left standing, either on the bottom of the vast shallow basin itself, or on the several hillocks that dotted it and formed its sides. Even the most prominent of these, the Black Hill, which jutted out on the Flat like a gigantic tumulus, had been stripped of its dense timber, feverishly disembowelled, and was now become a bald protuberance strewn with gravel and clay. The whole scene had that strange, repellent ugliness that goes with breaking up and throwing into disorder ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... isolating the hill of Troo that is attached to the plateau only on the North. The hill rises steeply from the river to a crest occupied by a Romanesque church recently scoured to the whiteness of flour, and beside it is a mighty tumulus, planted ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... which forms the southern boundary of the Gulf of Sidon, we rode for an hour or two over a plain near the sea, and then came down to a valley which ran up among the hills, terminating in a natural amphitheatre. An ancient barrow, or tumulus, nobody knows of whom, stands near the sea. During the day I noticed two charming little pictures. One, a fountain gushing into a broad square basin of masonry, shaded by three branching cypresses. Two Turks sat on its edge, ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... the bardic literature I fear to write at all, lest I should not know how to make an end. Rude indeed it is, but great. Like the central chamber of that huge tumulus [Note: New Grange anciently Cnobgha, and now also Knowth.] on the Boyne, overarched with massive unhewn rocks, its very ruggedness strikes an awe which the orderly arrangement of smaller and more ...
— Early Bardic Literature, Ireland • Standish O'Grady
... The inscription (which contained a very singular pun) was erased by the order of Licinius, who claimed some degree of relationship to Philip, (Hist. August. p. 166;) but the tumulus, or mound of earth which formed the sepulchre, still subsisted in the time of Julian. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... thanks for your valuable help. I think you may expect quite a good turn up of members on Tuesday. I have always thought that the tumulus in your field might yield some interesting archaeological find. The land and a former mansion were part of the Convent demesne, as you probably know. I am sorry that I shall not be present as I have to attend the Bishop's Conference at Bray Chester, which ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 18, 1919 • Various
... it had remained uncultivated, and presented a dreary, barren appearance. The order I had received, was to make an observation of the direction which a detachment of the enemy might have taken, from a northern tumulus; the whole Turkish army, followed by the Greek, had poured eastward; none but the dead remained in the direction of my side. From the top of the mound, I looked far round—all ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... reached his own frontier, when the discontent of the army, fomented by the prefect, Philip, came to a head. Gordian was murdered at a place called Zaitha, about twenty miles south of Circesium, and was buried where he fell, the soldiers raising a tumulus in his honor. His successor, Philip, was glad to make peace on any tolerable terms with the Persians; he felt himself insecure upon his throne, and was anxious to obtain the senate's sanction of his usurpation. He ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... the ancient Slavons at the burial of their heroes; and resembling the funeral games of the heroic age in Greece. The Slavonians, however, had the habit, on such occasions, of sacrificing a horse over the tumulus or barrow of the departed brave. The Perun mentioned in the stanzas was the War-God ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... day have discarded the majority of such theories as untenable in the light of hard facts. The dolmens, they say, are highly unsuitable for the purpose of altars, and as it has been proved that this class of monument was invariably covered in prehistoric times by an earthen tumulus its ritualistic use is thereby rendered improbable. Moreover, if we chance upon any rude carving or incised work on dolmens we observe that it is invariably executed on the lower surface of the table stone, the upper surface being nearly always rough, unhewn, ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... further justification of the argument two cases in which scrub fowl (MEGAPODIUS DUPERREYI TUMULUS) are concerned may be cited. Being a previously recorded fact, the first is excusable only on the grounds of its ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... evil influences were dictated; that sacrifices were performed to the heavenly Kami so as to develop filial piety; and that shrines were consecrated for worshiping the Imperial ancestors. Jimmu was buried in a tumulus (misasagi) on the northeast of Mount Unebi. The site is officially recognized to this day, and on the 3rd of April every year it is visited by an Imperial envoy, who offers products ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... fired wherever movement was seen. The Headquarters and the R.A.P. were frequently bombarded. At the same time the enemy's infantry started to dribble back by Forgan's and the new trench, into the S.W. corner of the village, probably to counter-attack. Observers saw this movement from the Tumulus Ridge, and, as soon as Corpl. Barber's post could be withdrawn, the suspected area was heavily shelled by our gunners, ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills |
