ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS 



on the south side of the park, were opened during the Congress of the 

 British Archaeological Association ' in the same year, and found to 

 contain burials with the head at the west end of the grave, which had 

 been lined with planks. With a woman had been buried a casket, beads, 

 coins called sceattas, a glass cup with applied threads, and a pottery vase 

 5 in. high at the feet ; but the other mound, raised over a warrior, was 

 practically unproductive. 



A little southward, on the same side of the Roman road, 

 as many as 308 graves were opened by Bryan Faussett' on Kingston 

 Down between 1767 and 1773. All but forty-five were marked by 

 small mounds of hemispherical form irregularly placed and fairly close 

 to one another on the north-west slope of a hill overlooking the village 

 of Kingston. In 1749 and 1753 a certain number of burials with feet 

 to the north had been found by workmen in digging chalk within a 

 wood and a few relics recovered. Systematic excavation however 

 showed that this orientation was exceptional, as 294 of the total 

 recorded in the Inventorhim had the head at the west end of the grave. 

 Remains of a wooden coffin were noticed in 183 cases, and of these 

 ninety-seven showed traces of fire, the timber, which was in some cases 

 3 inches thick, having been burnt to a certain degree (explains the 

 excavator) to make it more durable. In the fourteen irregular burials 

 there was a tendency for the feet to point northwards, while in one case 

 the head was at the east end. In one of these cases the coffin had been 

 burnt, but in eight others no timber could be traced ; and in the whole 

 cemetery there were about 100 graves without coffins or any but the 

 slightest furniture. Previous cremated burials had been disturbed in 

 three cases ; and the bones, collected in the original urn, were carefully 

 placed outside the coffin at the feet of the interred : in one case the urn 

 was of coarse red earth and seems from the illustration^ to belong to a 

 Kentish type of the Bronze Age, as from Highstead, Chislet (British 

 Museum). 



Another unexpected ceramic type occurred in the grave of a male 

 near the head, and the illustration' shows it to be a so-called ' Samian ' 

 bowl made in the second century, probably in S. France, and stamped 

 with the name of the potter, Caius (OF. CAM). An Anglo-Saxon vase, 

 usually of small dimensions and of rude black ware, appeared at the feet 

 in seven graves ; but these must not be confounded with the earlier 

 cinerary urns, nor with the bottle-shaped vases of buff ware in some of 

 the richer graves elsewhere and at the head of one woman's grave at 

 Kingston. In four graves of women wooden coffers had been placed at 

 the feet, and in two cases at the head ; while in the somewhat richly 

 furnished tomb of a warrior, a bronze bowl lay at the feet. Both the 

 form of this vessel and the design of the four circular mounts' (one under 

 the base, the others below the rim to attach chains for suspension) 

 betray Late Celtic influence, and fall into line with enamelled bowls 



• Canterbury vol. (1844), pp. 96-100: vase figured. > Inv. Sep. pp. 35-94- 



» Inv. Sep. p. 66. ■• Ibid. p. 74. ^ Ibid. pi. xvi. figs. 5, 5a. 



I 345 44 



