CEMETEEY AT FBILFORD. 585 



In all the inhumations which I have examined at Frilford, the 

 bodies had been extended at full length, and in the cases of 

 Romano-British burials more or less oriented. The fact that the 

 deviation from orientation is usually towards the south may seem 

 to indicate that the majority of deaths took place then, as now, in 

 the winter-quarters of the year, when the point in the horizon at 

 which the sun would rise would be south of east ^. 



I. Of the Roman Interments in Leaden Coffins discovered 

 at Frilford. 



By a reference to Mr. Akerman's paper already quoted, it may 

 be seen that two leaden coffins, each of which contained a skeleton, 

 and one of which contained a coin of Constantine the Great also, 

 were found in the Frilford cemetery in the autumn of 1864. The 

 commencement of my researches in this cemetery dates from the 

 discovery in it of a third and fourth coffin of similar character and 

 contents to these, in the month of January, 1867. These inter- 

 ments were near to each other, ten feet only intervening between 

 the foot of the one and the head of the other grave. The direction 

 of the graves was 45° south of east, which, when corrected for the 

 magnetic variation, would give E.S.E. as the true bearing. The 

 coffins were at a depth of about five feet below the present surface 

 of the soil, and this greater depth, as well as their greater intrinsic 

 costliness, would seem to show that their tenants had been persons 

 of greater wealth and consideration than the occupants of the 

 similarly oriented graves of which we shall have to speak next. 

 The length of the coffins is (5 feet 4 inches, and their breadth i foot 

 6 inches. Both of the coffins have undergone much mechanical 

 change in the way of contortion and crushing, and they contrast 

 herein to disadvantage with certain coffins of the same period in 

 the British Museum, and in the Museum of Antiquities at York, 

 which still retain the form which was conferred upon them at their 

 manufacture^. The Frilford coffins have also undergone much 



^ Cf. Abbd Cochet, *Normandie Souterraine,' ed. i. pp. 192, 193, 255, 265. 



^ The leaden coffins to be seen in the British Museum were dug up in Camden 

 Gardens, Bethnal Green, in the excavations for the New Docks at Shadwell, and in 

 Whitechapel. For the coffins in the York Museum, see Professor Phillips's * York- 

 shire,' p. 247, and • Descriptive Catalogue of Antiquities in York Museum,' by the 

 Bev. C. Wellbeloved, p. 77, and his ' Eburacum/ p. 112. 



