ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS mounts, an iron axe and shield-boss of the usual form, and a bronze bowl 1 6 inches in diameter. Roach Smith illustrated a buckle and characteristic bird from this site,' and Akerman gives a coloured drawing of a sword pommel with engraved runes.^ Further discoveries were made in 1783, including a fine brooch' with T-shaped garnets, ivory bosses, and gold filigree (as pi. i. fig. 14), while another grave with the head south-west contained a shield-boss and spear, associated with a vase of bottle-form. A coin of Justinian (a.d. 526) found in 1760 throws a certain light on the date of this cemetery." A valuable series of relics has been derived from a sand-pit at Gilton, in the parish of Ash, on the south side of the Canterbury and Sandwich road. Various excavations were made by Faussett° between the years 1 760-1 763 in the upper levels of this pit, and the following may serve as an analysis of the record made by himself, in which the particulars are given of 106 graves, one by one. Each grave had contained a single occupant, though in six cases there were signs that in the digging of the grave a previous cremated burial had been disturbed, and it is to the credit of the Anglo-Saxon that the broken pieces of the cinerary urn were collected and suffered to remain in the grave, the burnt bones being readily distinguishable from the later interment. From the discovery of coins of Augustus and Tiberius among the calcined bones in one such shattered urn (grave 50), it may be inferred that the site had been used as a cemetery by the Romano- British population during the first two or three centuries of our era ; but the ware is more than once described as coarse, with finger-nail decoration, recalling the cinerary vessels of the late Bronze Age. As a rule the graves were orientated, the head being at the west end, but seven had the feet ' more to the north,' and two were north and south, the feet being at the north end. It may be observed in passing that these nine exceptional graves were poorly furnished, there being no signs of a coffin, and generally nothing but an iron knife or spear-head. Almost exactly half the orientated graves retained traces of wooden coffins, and in seven cases special mention is made of the thick timber employed for the purpose. Some are stated to have passed the fire, but it is possible that the black colour of decayed wood may have deceived the explorer : the application of fire in any case would have been perfunctory, and purely for symbolic purposes. The sex of the interred could in many cases be decided by the bones or the grave furniture ; and in the graves of males there was generally a spear-head by the side of the skull, usually on the right, and occasionally what is described as a ' pilum,' perhaps a missile weapon, on the other side. The latter was in one case found to have measured 4I feet, in another a foot less, as the head and ferrule ' Coll. Antiq. ii. pi. xxxvii. figs. 8, 9. a Pagan Saxondom, pi. xxiv. fig. 3 ; see also below. » Nen. Brit. pi. ix. fig. 2. » Ibid. pi. xxii. fig. 6, p. 96, found with vase, pi. xxiii. fig. 5. • Described and illustrated in Inv. Sep. pp. I-34. I 353 45
