A HISTORY OF NORFOLK 



placed as if symmetrically in layers and embedded in leaves of hazel and 

 nut, and the excavators stated that the hazel-nuts in the upper layers were 

 more mature than those lower down, that is, the layers were deposited 

 gradually and not all at once. Some objects were found among the urns 

 — fibulae, one or two iron utensils (fig. 14), bones and the like — but fewer 

 (apparently) than in the upper half of the shaft. The bottom was paved 

 coarsely with flints. Two other pits were found close by. One was a 

 mere refuse-hole 5 feet deep. The other, 22 feet deep, resembled the 

 principal pit, but appeared to have bulged in and been abandoned almost 

 as soon as made.* 



Pits containing symmetrically arranged urns have been recorded 

 from some other parts of England. At Bekesbourn Hill, near Canter- 

 bury, a wooden shaft very like the Ashill shaft was found in the making 

 of the London, Chatham and Dover railway : its upper part was full of 

 large flints, its lower part contained urns placed carefully between layers 

 of flints. At Lothbury, in London, a boarded pit was found carefully 

 planked over at top and filled in its upper part with gravel ; below, sym- 

 metrically arranged urns were found in layers, a coin of Allectus and 

 some iron implements resembling a boathook and a bucket-handle. At 

 Silchester, near Reading, a pit excavated in 1894 in Insula xii. yielded 

 a dozen perfect urns, deposited in three layers with patches of moss 

 between them, and some animal's bones ; and a small boarded well, exca- 

 vated in 1899 in Insula xxi. was found to be full of gravel and to have 

 four perfect urns at the bottom. Other instances are known of boarded 

 wells or pits containing much pottery, but without the same symmetrical 

 arrangement — as at Felixstowe in Suffolk and Ewell in Surrey, and Bid- 

 denham and Dunstable in Bedfordshire ; while at Stone, near Aylesbury, 

 a pit or well has apparently been purposely used as a rude columbarium. 

 The explanation of these pits, and in particular of those which seem to 

 exhibit purposeful and symmetrical arrangement in layers, has been dis- 

 puted. They have been called sepulchral, but, except at Stone, hardly 

 any trace of human bones or ashes or burial has ever been noted in them. 

 They have been called surveyors' marks, but they are odd landmarks and 

 the whole theory of Roman surveying with which they have been con- 

 nected is probably unsound. They have been called storehouses, but the 

 lower part of a wooden shaft, 30 or 40 feet deep, is a curious cellar. 

 They seem in general to be disused wells, and the question has been asked 

 whether the symmetry of urns and layers may not after all be due to an 

 over ingenious interpretation by the modern excavator rather than to 

 some custom of the Roman-Briton. If the symmetry is real, it is a 

 problem rather for the anthropologist than the antiquary or historian.^ 



' For the Ashill villa see Norfolk Archeology, viii. 224 ; A re hceological Journal, xxxii. 108 ; Journal 

 of the British Arch. Association, xxxi. 469 ; C. Roach Smith, Collectanea Antiqua, vii. 1 10. Some of the 

 urns are in the Norwich Museum. The site is marked on the Ordnance maps. Roman remains have 

 been found close by, at Saham Tony (see Index). 



* For Bekesbourn see Archeologta Cantiana, ii. 46 ; Lothbury, Archeoloffa, xxvii. ; Silchester, ibid. 

 liv. 458, Ivii. ; Felixstowe, Archaological Journal, xxxi. 303, Ivii. 102 ; Ewell, Archteohgia, xxxii. 451 ; 

 Bedfordshire, Associated Architect. Societies Reports, iv. (1857), v. (1859) ; Stone, Archaologia, xxxiv. 21. 

 Gen. Pitt-Rivers has some general remarks, ibid. xlvi. 446-450. 



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