Archceologia. 309 



sided, and the fifth was six-sided, and one had two handles. One 

 was found inclosed in a chest of limestone. Only one clay cinerary 

 urn was met with ; but in one grave was found a large, almost 

 globular, amphora, two feet six inches in height, and two feet in 

 diameter, computed to hold fifteen gallons, which had perhaps been 

 used as a sepulchral urn, for it was found in a fragmentary state. It 

 should be added that the mouths of two of the glass vessels were 

 almost hermetically sealed with lead. Near the limestone cist con- 

 taining one of the glass vessels were found together two iron lamp- 

 stands, with the iron moveable rods attached, by which they might be 

 suspended to a wall. They had perhaps been used to support 

 lighted lamps in a small sepulchral chamber or cist, and lamps 

 have been found not unfrequently under similar circumstances 

 in Roman interments in our island. Among other fragments was a 

 piece of a vessel made of the red glazed pottery, which our antiqua- 

 rians seem now agreed in calling Samian ware. Besides these 

 interments of burnt bones, there were found five skeletons, the 

 remains of bodies which had been buried entire. It is evident from 

 many similar discoveries, that the two practices of cremation and 

 burial of the body entire prevailed in Britain during the whole 

 Roman period, and that the adoption of one or the other was a mere 

 question of individual choice. After the second century, the practice 

 of burning the dead began rapidly to be discontinued in the south, 

 until it disappeared entirely under the Christian emperors. But it 

 is probable that the influence of the imperial laws and regulations in 

 such matters as this extended but slowly into the distant provinces ; 

 in the more fashionable parts of Roman Britain we find both modes 

 of interment intermixed in the same cemetery, while, as we approach 

 what must have been the remote districts, the burial of the body 

 entire occurs less frequently. In the cemeteries at Wroxeter, the 

 Roman TJriconiam, a very large town, which was not destroyed till 

 the very close of the Roman period, down to the present time no 

 single instance has been found of burial otherwise than by crema- 

 tion. The ashes of the dead were usually deposited in an earthen- 

 ware vessel, generally of a form which was no doubt made for this 

 peculiar purpose. Sometimes, when they were perhaps made in a 

 hurry, for the necessity of the moment, in localities where they were 

 not always to be had ready made, they are of very rude and imper- 

 fect work. The glass vessels used for this purpose are less common, 

 and, as they are usually of very good material and workmanship, 

 they were, probably, only used by people of a superior class. We 

 may suppose that this cemetery at Barton- on- Soar belonged to 

 people of a superior position in society, who not only used glass vessels 

 for interment when they still practised cremation, but who had 

 adopted to a considerable extent the more fashionable mode of 

 burying the body entire. The urn itself, whether of earthenware 

 or glass, was sometimes buried, as here, in a cist or coffin ; and 

 sometimes, as we have found in many instances in Britain, it was 

 placed within an amphora, the upper part of which had been skil- 

 fully broken off' to allow of the urn being put inside. We are informed 

 that the amphora found at Bar ton-on- Soar had been filled with 

 charred wood, among the remains of which were found largo nails ; 



