ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS 



their frequent occurrence in Kent with brooches of a local character 

 is a fact of considerable importance, and points to some special function 

 assigned to women in this region. A certain number of objects from 

 these graves are certainly of Roman manufacture, while two long 

 brooches (as fig. 14) of bronze are early examples of a type subsequently 

 developed in the Anglian area. Several jewelled ornaments are not 

 of the ordinary kind but resemble continental work, and may be the 

 rude beginnings of the Kentish inlaid work. In one grave of a 

 woman there were found, with a pair of radiated brooches (as fig. 13) 

 and other ornaments, four gold bracteate pendants, three of which bear 

 the usual embossed decoration of dismembered animal-forms, while the 

 fourth has a distorted human figure like that frequently seen on Scan- 

 dinavian specimens. To the same foreign influence may doubtless be 

 assigned the swastikas engraved on a sword-pommel and belt-plate from 

 this cemetery. 



On the downs between Beakesbourne and Adisham, at a point 

 about 4 miles south-east of Canterbury, excavations were conducted by 

 Faussett in 1773.* Some of the mounds had been destroyed in planting 

 trees, and nine burials had been at some indefinite period covered with 

 a long bank, regarded by the explorer as part of a fortification. The 

 grave-mounds varied greatly in size, and one reached the abnormal 

 dimensions of 70 feet in diameter and 10 feet in height at the centre, 

 but nothing was found with the skeleton it covered. Another remark- 

 able grave is described and illustrated as cruciform, the four ends 

 corresponding with the cardinal points, and the head lying at the west 

 end, but it was suggested that two graves had been cut at this spot at 

 different times in opposite directions ; and this view is supported by a 

 discovery of the sherds of a cinerary urn in the mound. On the other 

 hand, the excavation measured 1 1 feet each way and at each extremity 

 was an arched recess about i foot deep in the chalk, containing wood- 

 ashes and scraps of iron : this may be taken to prove that the cruciform 

 cutting was intentional. 



Of the forty-five graves opened, twenty-nine had coffins which in 

 two cases were seen to be of oak, and all but three had been more or !ess 

 burnt. Besides the exceptionally large mound already referred to, two of 

 fair proportions consisted of flints ; and one mound had been erected over 

 two skeletons placed in a sitting posture with their backs against the 

 head of the grave. Bones of small animals were found in two instances, 

 the largest mound containing several heaps, but here as elsewhere the 

 bones of the head were missing, so that it was difficult to recognize the 

 species. Fragments of urns, including red Gaulish and Roman ware, 

 were noticed in several cases, and coins of Diocletian and Maximian, his 

 partner in empire (d. 305), were found. Also suggestive of Roman 

 civilization were two pieces of openwork leather in different graves, 

 probably belonging to sandals.'' Only one weapon was found, a lance 

 on the left of the body ; but there was a fair sprinkling of shears, keys, 



> Inventorium Sefulchrak, pp. 144-59. ' Ibid. p. 152. 



343 



