BONE OBJECTS FOUND IN ROMAN WELL AT LEICESTER 



ROMANO-BRITISH LEICESTERSHIRE 



and was left as it was found, except that part was filled with concrete and 

 used as the foundation of a new building. The excavations showed that 

 there was no continuation of the sewer beyond the centre of the Jewry Wall, 

 and it seems certain that 

 it turned at an angle and 

 went through or under- 

 neath the wall into the 

 town." Throsby said that 

 it entered the town at the 

 south end of the wall 

 by way of St. Nicholas 

 Street." 



Outside the angle, 

 formed by the meeting of 

 the northern and eastern 

 walls of Ratae, opposite 

 to where St. Margaret's 



Church now stands, Roman coins have often been found, and in a spot 

 close to the angle thus made two wells or pits containing Roman relics, 

 chiefly pottery, were discovered. In a third pit, about 14 ft. below the 

 present surface, a basket, formed of wood and wicker, evidently sunk as a 

 means of collecting water in a bed of gravel, was disinterred. It was 5 ft. 

 6 in. in height, and measured 5 ft. 6 in. by 3 ft. 6 in. at the bottorr, 

 /ft. 6 in. by 5ft. 6 in. at the top. About aft. above the rim of the basket 

 were visible indications of a ground line, on which were found part of a flint 

 celt 4 in. long, and various bone articles. The basket itself was choked with 

 rubbish pieces of stone, fragments of horns, and teeth of various animals, 

 including the tusks of a boar, portions of skulls of two goats, two whetstones, 

 two pointed pieces of iron, &c. The lower part contained a mass of weed, 

 rushes, hay, and snail shells, blanched with age. Four feet above this line 

 another level was visible. On this a pair of Roman shears, a rude crucible, 

 and other things of the same date were seen. This level was 6 ft. above the 

 basket. About 4ft. higher fragments of Roman pottery, small and coarse, 

 were discovered. On the supposed Roman levels streaks of charred material 

 were distinctly visible. In the upper crust of the bank of sand or gravel in 

 which these things were found, small bits of Roman pottery were plentiful. 

 From the general appearance of the bone articles found, and their similarity 

 to antiquities discovered at Settle, in Yorkshire, it has been concluded that 

 they were of a late Roman date." The bone articles found were : i, a 

 circular ring, pierced with holes, 2! in. in diameter ; 2, a hexagonal handle, 

 2j in. long ; 3, a whistle, 3! in. long ; 4, a piece of bone pierced in the 

 centre, i&in. long ; 5, a cylindrical object, 3! in. long, with wide oval slit ; 

 6, a tooth, perhaps of a dog, ijin. long, pierced for suspension ; 7, a boar's 

 tusk, 3 1 in. long, two holes pierced at the broad end. 



Cemeteries. The principal cemetery of Ratae was outside the south- 

 west corner of the Roman town. In the Abbey Meadow a number of 

 cinerary urns containing bones have from time to time been discovered, 



Bellairs, Leu. jirch. Sac. viii, 40. 



" F. Thompson, Proc. Sac. Antlj. (Ser. 2), i, 243 (1860). 



199 



66 Ibid. ; and vii, 311-12. 



