54 DR Johnston's notice of some roman urns. 



These are evidently sepiilcliral urns of Eoman manufacture, and the 

 coarseness of the material, and the rude fashion in which they are 

 ornamented, prove the ashes they contained to be those of some ignoble 

 persons, — 



" to fortune and to fame unknown." 



Similar urns have been dug up occasionally in other places in this 

 neighbourhood. Two were procured from a gravel bank at Billymire, 

 in the parish of Chirnside, about 1790 (Stat. Ace. v. xiv. p. 30); and 

 "in 1792, on clearing the ground of a heap of stones which had 

 been collected upon the top of the Crimson, or Crameston Hill, on the 

 north side of the village of Gravinton, several earthen urns, of different 

 sizes, were dug up. The urns contained human bones, but had no 

 inscription upon them." (Ibid. p. 584.) I have seen the fragments of 

 two very large ones in the possession of the Eev. A. Baird of Cock- 

 burnspath, which had been procured near that village ; and Mr Selby 

 has met with several near Twizell-house. For the possession of those 

 under notice, the Club is indebted to the attention of the Eev. Mr 

 Campbell of Tweedmouth. 



Since sepidchral urns were never placed by the Eomans in temples, 

 but in fields and by high-ways, the situation of the present may 

 possibly serve to indicate the precise line of the groat northern road 

 of that people, called the DeviVs Causeivay ; and from the name of a 

 hamlet — Camp-houses — in the immediate vicinity of Murton, we may 

 conjecture that they had also a military station here, which is the 

 more probable, as the remains of a Eoman camp are still visible on the 

 banks of the Tweed, near West Ord, which is not more than between 

 two and three miles distance from Murton. 



To ascertain the precise antiquity of these remains I can make no 

 essay, but a conjectural approximation to it may be allowed. Not- 

 withstanding the stories to the contrary in the Scottish Chronicles, it 

 may safely be taken for granted that the Eomans had not penetrated, 

 or at least made any settlement in our district, until Agricola led his 

 armies northward, about the year 80. They withdrew finally from 

 Britain in the year 426 ; and although they did not occupy our district 

 during the whole of the intervening 346 years, having been repeatedly 

 driven beyond Adrian's Wall by the Picts and Scots, yet they generally 

 repossessed themselves of it in a short time, and certainly had encamp- 

 ments in it until within a very short period of their removal. But 

 assuming the latest date for their burial, the urns before us possess all 

 the interest attached to antiquities, upwards of 1400 years existence, — 

 a larger one than any monument of the border warrior can claim. "In 

 vain we hope to be known by open and visible conservatories, when 

 to be unknown was the means of their continuation, and obscurity 

 their protection." — Sir T. Browne. 



Note. — Since the above notice was read, I have received from Mr 



