A HISTORY OF KENT 



between the rays, and the face covered with cell-work of garnets and 

 blue glass imitating lapis-lazuli. On the back besides the pin is a loop 

 for suspension, as on the famous Kingston brooch (fig. 4). It lay on 

 the breast of a female skeleton, and underneath it were nine coloured 

 glass beads with inlaid rope pattern, a melon-shaped Roman glass bead 

 and metal fragments. Near the left arm was an annular bronze brooch 

 with engraved design, and on the left hip was a bronze bracelet. Two 

 other graves contained iron shears, and another had, besides beads of 

 glass and amethyst, a pair of earrings, and two pieces of bone or teeth 

 of the dog, tipped with metal and bored for suspension. 



In 1 880-1 about forty graves were discovered on the Rondeau 

 estate at the west end of Sittingbourne, on the north side of Wat- 

 ling Street.' They were situated in an area which contained many 

 Roman burials after cremation ; and though at first sight it might be 

 inferred that here the two civilizations intermingled, it must be remem- 

 bered that cremation ceased about the middle of the third century ; 

 and the unburnt burials, with their characteristic weapons, are probably 

 of the sixth century. A sword was found bearing traces of a wooden 

 sheath, and an iron spur from the site is a rarity. An amber-coloured 

 glass goblet was in the same grave as a shield-boss and had therefore 

 been buried with a man ; while a red-ware pitcher had an impressed 

 design of Prankish aspect, arranged in wavy lines. Three other 

 swords and shield-bosses, both conical and of the usual pattern, are also 

 in the national collection, to which several objects of interest from graves 

 at Milton-next-Sittingbourne (collected by the late Mr. Humphrey 

 Wood) have been recently added. A gold finger-ring of Roman work- 

 manship with the broad bezel set with a sard intaglio was found in 

 1889 with a skeleton laid with the head at the west end of the grave, 

 in a brick-field to the north-east of Milton^; in the grave were also a 

 glass vessel, a bronze-gilt buckle, and an iron spear-head, this last point- 

 ing to a Teutonic origin, though the ring must date from the second 

 century. Besides these, three large silver brooches of the square-headed 

 type set with square garnets and ornamented with the engraved animal 

 forms common in northern Europe during the sixth century, were 

 found in the neighbourhood and are preserved in a defective condition. 

 Above all, a fine jewel of cell-work, exhibited with these in the British 

 Museum, shows the wealth and craftsmanship of the period. It is of 

 fiddle-back form (pi. i. fig. 13), the base and partitions being of gold ; 

 the settings remaining are garnets and sapphire (centre), but several 

 have been lost and probably were of blue glass imitating lapis-lazuli. 

 It is not in the true Kentish style, and is certainly earlier than the 

 majority of jewels found in the county ; possibly it was made across the 

 Channel, and the nearest parallel is a buckle-plate found near Houdan, 

 Seine-et-oise.' 



' Proc. Soc. Antiq. Land. viii. 275, 506; Payne, Coll. Cant. 108, where earlier discoveries are also 

 recorded (1869-71). 



2 Site marked on map in Coll. Cant. p. 124; for ring, see p. 119. 

 ' Coll. Cant. p. 120; Coll. Antiq. iv. p. 188. pi. xlv. 



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