many of the ideas of Stukeley and Borlase on this subject. and Humbleby Belas Knap, otherwise called Hamley Hough, in Charlton Abbots parish, Gloucestershire, carries with How. its name similar ideas of solar superstition: in Belus, as before observed, we recognise by, Bel, 'Baal;' and in Hamley, we have, a place of Ham, solar heat, the sun.' Baals-barrow in Wilts, corrupted to Bowls-barrow, and Bowldown, in Gloucestershire, where there are remains of British tumuli, point to the same worship. - Belas Knap barrow was opened in 1863, and presented all the interesting features of the long tumuli of the Britons, the cromlech, or stone-altar, to the north, and sepulchral chambers at the east and west; a single sepulture, in a grave constructed of rough stones at the south, possibly a later interment1. Flint implements, and rude pottery, were discovered in the sepulchral chambers. In the parish of Avening were two very interesting long-barrows; one of them is described in the Archeologia, and was etched by J. Burden, 1809. Its altar and sepulchral chambers were very perfect. After being opened, the stones were removed and re-erected in the Rectory garden, at that place. Avening is in Saxon called Afonig or Afoning; the termination ing as also en, as wood, wooden, gold, 8 Britton's Wilts.; Beauties of England and Wales, p. 319. h A similar interment occurs in the tumulus at Ablington; possibly the interment of a slave, or a burial of a later period taking advantage of an already existing burial-place. golden, signifying the possessive case, 'of;' Aven-ing is 'the place of Aven.' Aven, in Scripture, was notorious for its idolatry, and ", Aven, or Aun," says Parkhurst, "was particularly the wickedness of idolatry, as some understand 1 Sam. xv. 23, where the Vulgate explains, Uteraphim-Aven, by 'quasi scelus idolatriæ.' Also an idol itself, as in Isaiah lxvi. 3. But in both these last-cited passages, 7, Aven, may, like Teraphim in the former of them, be the specific name of an object of worship;" in short, a deity: and such we find it to have been. Broughtoni shews us that "Aven and Ate (Hété, see p. 107) were associated in the Armenian mythology." Aren, or Aun, or On (for they are the same), was the sun. Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria, in Egypt, says that On among the Egyptians meant the sun : "Ων δὲ ἐστὶ κατ ̓ αὐτοὺς ὁ Ἥλιος. On, Aun, was the name of the city, according to Herodotus and Strabo, where the sun was worshipped, and it was called Heliopolis, and in later times Baalbec: thus identifying the sun and Baal, if any doubt remained as to their identity. The worship carried on at Hierapolis appears precisely the same in character and observances as that carried on by the Druids in Britain. See Ross's Пávoeßeia, who informs us that the priests of Aven, or Hierapolis, were called Galli (or Gauls); that Apollo, or the sun, was the god worshipped; that three hundred priests ministered there, clothed in white, with their hands covered, with singing and musical instruments; that their high-priest was elected every i Religious Rites and Ceremonies. |