2 
Roman coffins were, I believe, used more than once. There 
was evidence of this in the discovery on the Mount of the large 
sarcophagus of iElia Severn, which was covered with an 
inscribed slab commemorating a very different family. Nay, 
more; we have proof in various places that the Romans them¬ 
selves, when in want of stone, w^ere not deterred by religious 
feeling from breaking up monumental slabs and using them as 
building materials. Christians, as we know, have followed in 
this respect the Pagan custom. 
The cemeteries at Eburacum were for the most paid by the 
sides of the chief roads. They were probably fenced in and 
planted with shrubs and flowers, among which every here and 
there stood or lay a headstone or cippus bearing an inscription 
to the dead. Beyond the fence, in the open field, other inter¬ 
ments would take place, but in no regular order. The cemetery 
for the richest classes at Eburacum was that on both sides of the 
road to Tadcaster, which has yielded, and will no doubt 
continue to yield, many treasures to the York Museum. You 
trace these interments over the crest of the Mount, in Mount 
Yale, and as far as Dringhouses, if not beyond it. You find 
burials and tombs in Clementhorpe, and in the direction of 
Bishoptliorpe. On the other side of the river many interments 
have been discovered, in the direction of the Castle and Eisher- 
gate. You find them also outside Monk Bar, near the Malton 
road; whilst down Bootham, on both sides of the way to 
Aldbrough, there have from time to time been discovered 
traces of a very large cemetery. It was in the brickfields 
between the road and the river that the antiquaries of the 17th 
century used to get the urns which adorned their museums, 
and vast numbers must be still in the ground on both sides of 
the road, for at least a mile from the Bar. Sepulchral memorials 
have been found in great quantities at Burton-lane and in 
Clifton. The pair of fine stone coffins now in St. Leonard's 
Hospital came from the corner of Clifton-green; and there is 
another, used as a horse-trough, lying on the left-hand side of 
the road before you come to that place. 
It is to the excavations for the North Eastern Railway that 
we are indebted for the discovery of the great cemetery on the 
