608 A Saxon Cemetery at " The Fox^'' Purton. 



any recent disturbance of the ground. At some time or other 

 however there must probably have been such disturbance and the 

 missing bones must have been destroyed. The skeleton lay with its 

 head (when it existed) slightly to the east of north. The only 

 accompanying objects were an oyster shell lying at the right hip and 

 an iron tanged knife 5:^in. in length lying between the thigh bones, 

 doubtless having been worn at the waist. N"© sign of a coffin was 

 visible. The leg bones were of some size. The other interment (No. 

 4) was actually on the edge of the quarry to the west of No. 3. It 

 was, like the other interments, about 18in. underground. All 

 that could be found of it was the upper half of a small femur, a 

 bone of the pelvis attached to it, and lying under these part of the 

 two bones of the forearm and the small bones of the hand. The 

 rest of the body had evidently been quarried away. These bones 

 were very small, apparently those of a young girl, and so far as 

 could be judged the head must have been to the south. 



As the interments were such a slight distance underground it 

 was easy in a short time to do a good deal of trenching in the hope 

 of discovering others, and during the day some 65 yards of trenches 

 were dug parallel to the quarry edge and to the trenches already 

 dug in the spring, but without further result. As all the land 

 likely to be quarried in the next few years has now been trenched, 

 \x> seemed scarcely worth while to go on further with the work. 

 We have to thank Mr. Sadler not only for giving facilities for the 

 work, but also for allowing all the recent finds to be placed in the 

 Society's Museum. 



There are in the Ashmolean Museum,^ at Oxford, certain Saxon 

 objects, labelled as from Purton, Wilts, of which no further par- 

 ticulars are known. They may possibly have come from this same 

 site many years ago. The objects are all of iron, and are as 



follows: — 



Spear head 



12|in. long. 





Short " seax " 



J5 



Sin. 

 6|in „ 





Knife 



Sj^in. long. 



Tang imperfect 



- 



4iin. 



Point of blade wanting. 



I 



1 We are indebted to Mr. E. Thurlow Leeds, of the Ashmolean Museum, 

 for calling our attention to these Purton objects. 



