122 Anglo-Saxon Pottery. 



lection, preparatory to his edition of Bryan Faussett's Inven- 

 torium Sepulchrale, discovered on one side of this urn a Roman 

 sepulchral inscription, which is easily read as follows : — 



D. M. To the gods of the shades. 



LAELIAE To Leelia 



RVFINAE Rufina. 



YIXIT-A'XIII She lived thirteen years, . 



M^III'D'YI. three months, and six days. 



To this Roman girl, with a purely Roman name, belonged no 

 doubt the few bones which were found in the Anglo-Saxon 

 burial urn when Bryan Faussett received it, and this circum- 

 stance illustrates several important as well as interesting ques- 

 tions relating to our early history. It proves, in the first place, 

 what no judicious historian now doubts, that the Roman 

 population remained in the island after the withdrawal of the 

 Roman power, and mixed with the Anglo-Saxon conquerors ; 

 that they continued to retain for some time at least their old 

 manners and language, and even their Paganism and their 

 burial ceremonies ; for this is the purely Roman form of sepul- 

 chral inscriptions; and that, with their own ceremonies, they 

 buried in the common cemetery of the new Anglo-Saxon pos- 

 sessors of the land, for this urn was found in an Anglo-Saxon 

 burial ground. This last circumstance had already been sus- 

 pected by antiquaries, for traces of Roman interment in the 

 well-known Romau leaden coffins had been found in the Anglo- 

 Saxon cemetery at Ozingell, in the isle of Thanet ; and other 

 similar discoveries have, I believe, been made elsewhere. The 

 fact of this Roman inscription on an Anglo-Saxon burial urn, 

 found immediately in the district of the Anglo- Saxon ceme- 

 teries which have produced so many of these East Anglian 

 urns, proves further that these urns belong to a period following 

 immediately upon the close of what we call the Roman period. 

 The sepulchral vases found in what we may consider as the 

 district of the middle Angles, which included the. counties of 

 Derby, Nottingham, and Leicester, vary but slightly from the 

 East Anglian burial urns. An example of them is given in 

 Fig. 2 of our group of Anglo-Saxon pottery, No. I. It was 

 found at Chestersovers, in Warwickshire, and was accom- 

 panied with an iron sword, a spear head, and other articles of 

 Anglo-Saxon character, of which there could be no doubt, or, 

 indeed, of the other remains found in the same cemetery. It is 

 right to remark that, while choosing the burial urns as the 

 representative of Anglo-Saxon pottery, I do so because they 

 give us the most extensive and therefore the surest means of 

 comparison ; but I do not mean this to imply that there are 



