ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS 



specimen mentioned above, being 3^ inches long. Other small brooches 

 were found, some faced with garnets, others of plain bronze, and among 

 various minor articles were two large melon-shaped Roman beads of 

 blue glass. 



Mr. Cecil Brent,' in 1881, continued his brother's exploration of 

 the site, and found three graves, lying east and west, at the bottom of a 

 trench 10 feet deep cut in soil that had been washed down from above. 

 Of these one was that of a warrior, as shown by a truly conical shield- 

 boss, the only relic ; the second was a female interment, with the usual 

 beads of glass, amber and crystal ; while the other contained only a few 

 bones. Another group of four graves was discovered, one of which 

 was north and south, and contained the remains of a man who seemed 

 to have been buried in a sitting position ; with him had been placed a 

 spear on the right, and on the left a knife 15 inches long and another 

 about half the length evidently in one sheath ; also part of an ivory 

 (bone ?) comb, an iron oval ring, and a boar tusk, worked. Another 

 of this group contained a small tusk with a small gold earring, buried 

 over a male body by which was a fine iron spear-head. The others 

 contained nothing of interest. 



North-west from Stowting, the high ground overlooking the 

 Stour valley had evidently been appreciated by the Romanized popula- 

 tion. The excavations conducted by Faussett^ in 1757 and 1759 on 

 Tremworth Down in the parish of Crundale, though they resulted in 

 but few additions to his Anglo-Saxon collection, are of interest as 

 pointing the contrast between Romano-British and later interments. 

 It was doubtless this early experience that led him to assign all the 

 cemeteries he explored to the Romanized inhabitants of Kent, though 

 he specially remarks on the differences of orientation in this and other 

 localities. His words are : ' The position of the skeletons here, with 

 their feet to the west or south-west, I am quite at a loss to account for, 

 it being a direct contrary one to what I have met with in all other 

 places where I have since dug — at Ash, Chartham, Kingston, Bishops- 

 bourne, Sibertswold and Barfreston ; at all which places they were 

 found, in general, with their feet pointing to the east or near it. Some 

 few, indeed, I have met with at some of those places which pointed 

 with their feet to the north or near it ; but I have never found above 

 one (at Kingston, see p. 345), which pointed, as these all did, with 

 their heads to the east and their feet to the west.' There were besides 

 unburnt burials, a number of cinerary urns evidently of Roman manu- 

 facture in this cemetery ; and though it is not stated in the original 

 account, it may be taken that the latter belong to the first two or three 

 centuries of our era, the practice of burying the body entire dating in 

 this country from about the middle of the third century onwards. 



There was, however, at least one Anglo-Saxon burial here, and to 

 judge from the associated relics it was that of a woman. An urn 

 at the feet contained a coin of Faustina, the wife of Marcus Aurelius, 



» Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc, xxxix. 84. * Inv. Sep. pp. 177-98. 



367 



