CEMETERY AT FRILFOED. 601 



I should add that it is possible that half-converted Saxons may- 

 have relapsed into cremation in the absence of the missionary, and 

 under the temptation which the licence of the ' lyke-wake ' created. 

 But the practice of such a transitional period, if it ever existed, 

 would not affect the historical argument for the overrunning of this 

 country by heathens, which the discovery of these urns in so many 

 parts of it furnishes. 



A piece of Samian ware was found in the Roman rubbish -pit 

 already mentioned as having been discovered within about 300 

 yards of the cemetery. The resemblance of its pattern to that on 

 the Anglo-Saxon urns is very striking, though the execution and 

 finish are as different as is the material. A pattern of Vandykes, 

 scored zones, and stellate impressions, is one which, by its sim- 

 plicity, would suggest itself to the rudest nations, and I do not, of 

 course, mean to hint that the urns found here by me were figured 

 after the pattern of Roman ware found here by the Anglo-Saxons. 

 Still the similarity of the two patterns is very striking, and when 

 we consider that urns with Latin inscriptions and of Roman manu- 

 facture have been found with Anglo-Saxon patterns upon them ^, it 

 is less difiicult to imagine that the Teutonic races, years before the 

 period we are dealing with, and while yet in their North German 

 native country, imitated with a stick on coarse hand-fashioned 

 clay-paste the very simple but still beautiful pattern which the 

 Gallo-Romans imprinted on finer and lathe-turned materials. 

 Another illustration would thus be furnished of the extreme readi- 

 ness already alluded to with which the Germanic natives imitated 

 the arts and refinements of the Romans. 



Burnt human bones have been here and there met with without 

 any urn in relation with them, but within my experience at Fril- 

 ford they have been merely scattered or even single bones, the 

 presence of which may be explained by the disinterment of an urn, 

 and the subsequent replacing of its fragments and its contents with 

 less care than was sometimes bestowed upon this task 2. 



In none of the urns were any other contents than human bones 

 mingled with earth and stones discovered, except in the case of the 



1 See Roach Smith, 'British Association Eeports for 1855,' p. 145, and the same 

 writer's * Collectanea Antiqua,' v. 115, pi. x. where such an urn, bearing the inscription 

 D.M. Laeliae Rufinae vixit. a.iii. m.iii.d.vii. is figured. 



^ See 'Inventorium Sepulchrale/ Introd. p. xvi, pp. 8, 9, 12, 17, 18, 19, 40, 156, 

 159, 175. 



