London Times, July 20th, 1836:
1836 In early July, some boys were looking for a rabbit hole in the rock near Edinburgh, which was called Arthur's seat. On the edge of the cliff, they found some thin slates and pulled them out.
Small hole.
Seventeen little coffins.
Three to four inches long.
There is a miniature Woodenhead in the coffin. They wear different styles and materials. Each floor has two floors, eight coffins, and the third floor starts with a coffin.
This extraordinary data is particularly puzzling here:
The coffin is kept alone in this small hole every many years. On the first floor, the coffin has completely rotted and the packaging has rotted. On the second floor, the influence of age has not improved so far. The top coffin was recently found.
Edinburgh's brief description of the fortress in 1830 (public domain) is accurate. As for its past and more than a century, people know little about the origin and use of the strange miniature coffin. Less than half of the people survived; In the first published report, the Scotsman explained, "Some of them were destroyed by boys beating each other as meaningless and despicable trifles." Those who were brought down from the hillside finally found the collection of Robert Frazer, a jeweler in South Andrews Street, and he displayed them in his private museum. After Fraser retired in 1845, this collection was auctioned, and the items described in the auction catalogue as "coffins of famous little people found in Arthur's seat in 1836" cost just over 4 pounds. In this way, the coffin was handed over to an unknown private safekeeping until 190 1. At that time, the owner donated a set of eight coffins and their contents to Christina Coupar of the Scottish National Museum in Dufresne.
Indirect evidence strongly shows that these coffins belong to the same group as those obtained by Fraser in 1836, but there are few more details. The first news report appeared three weeks after the initial discovery, and none of the boys gave their names. A later report, which was not quoted, did not appear in Edinburgh Evening News until 1956, but it was so detailed that it may be based on some other unknown contemporary sources, adding that this discovery was made on June 25th 1836, and pointing out that the niche was "about one foot high, about 65,438+. Arthur's seat-a long-dead volcano-loomed over Edinburgh, and there was always a place to separate the air. (Wikipedia)
Another interesting detail in the same report is that the surviving coffin was taken back the next day by Mr. Ferguson, a member of the local archaeological association and a male principal. Reporter Robert Chapman added that the coffin had not been opened yet, but "Mr. Ferguson took the coffin home in a bag, and that night he settled down in the kitchen and began to pry open the lid of the coffin with a knife." Mr. Ferguson took them to the next association meeting, and his colleagues were equally surprised. Where Chapman got this information is still unknown, but a search of the contemporary street directory shows that there were two principals named Ferguson working in Edinburgh in 1836-George Ferguson was a master of classical literature in Edinburgh College, and Findlay Ferguson was an English and math teacher in Duddingston on Easter.
Chapman's account at least explains how the surviving coffin fell into the hands of the knowledgeable gentleman in the city from the man who found the boy. In this gloomy environment, it is not surprising that this discovery is only known. The Scots reported that the boys digging coffins had been "looking for the rabbit hole in the northeast of Arthur's seat", and one of them found "a small hole in the rock, and the strange appearance of this hole caught their attention." Another story, which seems to have been circulated orally in Edinburgh at this time, was written by a reporter with the title "A Fairy's Cemetery", which is more dramatic:
1836 or 1837 lived in Edinburgh and forgot a strange discovery, which formed the theme of the nine-day miracle and some newspaper paragraphs. Some children were playing at the feet of Craigs in Salisbury, and one of them tried to climb the cliff more boldly than others. His foot slipped, and in order to avoid a dangerous fall, he grabbed a prominent rock, which seemed to be connected with other parts of the cliff. However, under the pressure of his hand, it gave in. Although it broke his decline, he and it both came to the bottom of Craig. There is nothing to be afraid of. The strong boy stood up, shook himself and began to try for the second time. When he reached the dangerous rock, he found that it only covered the entrance of a big hole, which was dug from the cliff surface.
Salisbury Cliff, on the left is Arthur's seat (geographical map, provided under CCL. ) Scot said, I think, here, notes and inquiries add many other details that are known to be untrue, such as the statement that the coffin has "small handles and all other decorations that the funeral parlour thinks are worthy of respect", but it is actually in the same position as N&; Q is also roughly the same. On the contrary, another Edinburgh newspaper, Caledonian Mercury, described the place as "lying behind Arthur's seat"-that is, on the south side of the mountain. Considering the relative accessibility of the north and the time interval between the tomb and its discovery, it is more likely that the exact location of the discovery is neither Salisbury Cliff nor the north of Arthur's seat, but a location in the south, on the side of the seat far from Edinburgh. This has a very interesting connection with the concept that Findlay Ferguson of Dardingston may be the main person in charge of the discovery of Easter, because Dardingston is lying under Arthur's seat. No matter what the facts are, according to contemporary data, the coffin was not found in a huge "cave" on the hillside, as people sometimes think, but in a small crack in the rock. Similarly, the Scots have the clearest description:
The entrance of this small cave is closed by three thin slates, and the upper end of slate is roughly cut into a cone shape, so it is placed to protect the inside of the cave from the weather.
According to a later statement, in the so-called "continuous catalogue" of the Scottish Antiquities Association, there is at least one slate "shaped like a tombstone of a grave". What the boys found when they moved the slate was "a hole about 12 inches square, with 17 little people's coffins, two floors and eight floors, three floors and one floor, just beginning!" "Every coffin," added the Scot.
It contains a mannequin carved out of wood, especially the face. They put on cotton-padded clothes from head to toe and put on a decent dress that imitated all funeral objects. These are usually the last habits of the dead. The coffin is about three or four inches long and has a regular shape. It was cut from a piece of wood, but the lid was nailed down because he didn't use an edge tool like a chisel to cut the bottom of the notch, and the cutting depth was difficult to control (even penetrated the bottom of coffin No.5).
There are two shapes. Five coffins (1 No.,No.2, No.4, No.6 and No.8) were carved into square corners, but the sides of most coffins were slightly curved, so both ends of the coffins had a taper. However, the edges and ends of the other three coffins (No.3, No.5 and No.7) are obviously round; This means different manual methods ... this may indicate that the coffin may have been carved by two different people.
The side of a statue on Arthur's seat shows how an arm was removed and put into the coffin. (National Museum of Scotland) As for who carved it, Simpson and Menefei pointed out that "the most striking visual feature of the coffin is the use of tin-plated iron sheets as decoration." The analysis of this metal shows that it is very similar to tin used in contemporary shoe buckles, thus opening the coffin. This may be the job of shoemakers or leather workers, who originally had the skills to make coffins by hand, but lacked the professional woodworking tools needed to make coffins cleaner.
We also studied the figurines found in the coffin. These eight kinds of wood carvings are all carved from fine-grained white wood, with almost the same proportion, and the height difference is less than 5 mm, which is about one-fifth of an inch. Some people have arms, but several dolls took them off, apparently to put the bodies in the coffin neatly. This shows that these statues are not specially carved for burial, but are adapted from a group of existing statues; Simpson and Menefei noticed their "stiff upright posture", indicating that they were wearing hats at first, and their carefully carved lower bodies "formed tight knee pants and stockings, and their lower feet were blackened, indicating ankle boots"-believing that they were the remnants of a group of toy soldiers, and noticed that each of them was upright, adding a slight weight in front of them, which may be provided by model rifles. There is no need to guarantee that the purpose of sculpture is only to make the body stand upright. These characteristics are very similar. "These characters seem unlikely to represent specific individuals." In addition, "the open eyes of these characters show that they were not carved to represent the corpse."
According to their appearance, the author preliminarily determined the age of this group of portraits as 65438+90' s; However, the tree-ring chronology analysis and carbon dating of this group of portraits have not been carried out. Some surviving figurines still wear well-preserved "burial clothes". As Simpson and Menefei pointed out, "a one-piece suit made of rags has been shaped and sewn around the statue." Some figures show that something is stuck under the cloth. The style of clothes has nothing to do with the serious clothes of that period. If it is completely representative, it is more in line with daily wear. When the No.8 figure put on his clothes, his arm disappeared, indicating that this fabric is just to cover the figure decently and does not represent the clothing. " All the fabrics are cheap and pure cotton, although one of the characters wears plaid clothes and three "seem to have drawn patterns on the cloth with ink."
There are also two figurines, showing the details of stitching and clothes, which are the key clues to their possible origin. The evidence of the figurine (National Museum of Scotland) makes it much easier to date the grave. Naomi Tarant, director of European textiles at the National Museum of Scotland, said that the surviving vestments were in good condition, indicating that they were buried in the National Museum of Scotland in the 1930s. R, a researcher of Scottish history, thinks that "the most credible theory was put forward by people who knew Burke and Hale", so he has a strong motive to make compensation for their crimes. Some people try to suggest that Burke himself may have made and buried these fragments in the pain of remorse, but it seems that he failed to solve such a problem: after the murder of 17, the murderer was arrested almost immediately and there was little or no time to bury him; Burke's DNA sample was obtained from the murderer's skeleton, which was kept in Edinburgh University, but there was no trace of DNA in the buried statue.
There is also a potentially fatal objection that Arthur's coffin has something to do with the murder of Westport: at least 12 of the victims of Burke and Hale are women, however, the dressed bodies found in the coffin are all dressed in men's clothes.
In Scotland in the early19th century, it is difficult to know how worrying this opposition is without knowing more about funeral customs. However, wearing a mini-skirt figurine seems to be no more difficult than sewing pants. In the absence of conclusive evidence that there is any connection between Burke and Hale's activities, I suggest that the first step of future investigation should be to check Scottish newspapers, such as those published between 1820 and 1836, to find any evidence of other disasters involving 17. Ideally, these people are not women. Scot and Caledonian Mercury are now digitized and can be searched by determined researchers. We wait for further development.
Close-up of two mysterious mini dolls in Edinburgh. Could these people be the faces of two victims of the notorious body robbers Burke and Hale? (National Museum of Scotland) from
Mercury in Caledonian,1August 5, 836; Fort Charles. A complete book. New york: Dover,1975; Edinburgh Evening News, 1956 10 2005 10/6 and12; Edinburgh Evening News, 65438+August 20th, 0836; Samuel Piater Menefe and Allen Simpson, The Murder of Westport and the Miniature Coffin on Arthur's Seat, The Book of the Old Edinburgh Club, Volume 3 of the new series (1994); Notes and questions, 3S. Iii.1April 4, 863; Journal of Scottish Antiquities Society 36 (1901-2002); Scotland, 1836