REPORT ON EXCAVATION AT SIGWELL. 443 



subject. With this and one or two more fragments of skull there 

 were some fragments of the long bones. With the white fragments 

 were mixed up here (as also in « Sigwell iii' to be hereafter 

 described) masses of bones so burnt and so broken up as to present 

 an Oxford grey colour from the intimate intermingling of their 

 white with their carbonised factors. With the bones were mixed 

 up inside the oak bark coffin some flint flakes labelled ( Sigwell ii 

 c ;' but not a single fragment of charcoal. It had been made of 

 two pieces of bark, which had been fastened together at the sides, 

 so as to leave two free ends projecting freely, not wrapped round 

 each other. But in one section drawn by General Lane Fox the 

 upper • bark cover having been shorter than the lower, this latter 

 simply curves round its free edge. As the ensuing description 

 will show, the lower piece of bark must have been laid upon the 

 ground, and the bones from the pyre or ustrinum must have been 

 brought to it and placed upon and along it together with the 

 earth and the bronze dagger, and the flints which were found 

 inside the coffin by us. The upper piece of bark was then put 

 over the entire mass of contents, and the rest of the barrow piled 

 over them. 



The coffin's east edge was nearer the east border of the grave 

 than its west edge was ; at this edge it was about I foot % inches 

 short of the grave's boundary. Its length was, from south to 

 north, about 7 feet; in working from south to north we had cut 

 away the south end of the coffin before we were aware of it, so that 

 we cannot say with perfect certainty where its south end began, but as 

 its north end was detectable 1 feet from the north end of the grave, 

 the entire length of which was only 10 feet, this is of no great 

 consequence. The width of the coffin was from 34 inches to 

 36 inches ; its depth in the middle line about 6-$ inches. 



The contents of the bark coffin contrasted very strikingly with 

 the made earth of the barrow above, with the natural soil into 

 which the grave was sunk on either side, and thirdly with the soil 

 from the grave itself, which had been thrown up on the east side of 

 the grave as seen and shown in the section. The soil within the 

 coffin was lighter a good deal than the made earth of the barrow, 

 the intermingling of which with fairly divided carbonaceous matter 

 had made it in places very dark ; but was much less light than the 

 natural ground into which the grave was sunk. But it is of great 



