2 28 DISCOVERY OF AN EARLY INTERMENT AT STANLEY GRANGE. 



Position : — The feet of the interment were to 

 the west-south-west, and the head was below 

 the cowhouse wall, six feet six inches from 

 the door into the stackyard. 

 Material : — Oak, and, as no traces of metal were 

 found, it may be assumed that pegs were 

 used instead of nails. 

 Condition : — The coffin looked more like char- 

 coal than wood, and yet in places the oak 

 was fairly sound. It was much broken, and 

 had to be carefully restored before the photo-, " 

 graph for Plate I. could be taken. 

 The human remains within consisted of the upper portion 

 of the skull, a portion of the jaw containing three teeth, and 

 the principal bones of the arms and legs, but the pelvis, spine, 

 and shoulder blades were absent, and probably had perished. 

 The skull, which was 7J inches long by 5§ inches broad, 

 was of somewhat unusual form in an interment of the period 

 to which this relates, having prominent superciliary ridges — 

 a very early tribal feature, almost of a pre-historic character. 

 The bones were only held together by the osseous external 

 coating, for the inner substance had entirely lost its nature. 

 On the right-hand side of the head was a small glass 

 phial of a greyish green tint, which, when found, was covered 

 with beautiful iridescence, but this, unfortunately, no longer 

 remains. It is three and a half inches high by one and a half 

 in diameter, and hexagonal in form (see Plate II.). 



Without any doubt the interment . dates from remote pagan 

 times, for it was laid with the feet to the west, and the phial 

 is an instance of the heathen custom of burying with their 

 dead any object conceived to be useful or desirable for the 

 deceased to possess in the future state. This would in every 

 respect meet the supposition of a Roman burial at some period 

 in the occupation of Britain during the first three centuries 

 and a half of our era, or rather of a burial by that far larger 

 section of the invaders who were not of the Christian 



