ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS there till the rapine and slaughter of the pagan period had given place to peaceful settlement. Seeing that for cogent geographical reasons Essex cannot be re- garded as the starting point of the Saxon settlements in Britain, it is not surprising to find very few relics of the pagan period in this part of the country. It is perhaps to the Romano-Britons rather than to their Saxon conquerors that we must attribute a deposit of bronze vessels discovered nearly a century ago 3 feet below the surface in the village of Sturmere on the Suffolk border and not far from a Roman station. These nine bowls 1 had been packed one inside the other, with a large flat pan on the top ; and all are now preserved in the museum at Saffron Walden. Their forms as well as the circumstances of their discovery recall a series of eight discovered at Irchester,' comprising both Roman and Anglo-Saxon forms, and pointing to the transition period of the fifth century. Some have the rim turned abruptly inwards, and slightly thickened, while others have a projecting top which is quite horizontal. Their use is quite uncertain ; but as some of them are of very thin metal, they were probably intended for ceremonial use. In neither case was there any sign of an interment in the vicinity ; in fact, cemeteries of the early Anglo-Saxon period are very rare in Essex, and what there are have not been thoroughly explored. Experience warns us against expecting complete uniformity in the grave furniture and funeral rites met with in any particular district, however strong the tradition of its occupation by a single race ; and Essex is no exception to the rule though there remains but little material for purposes of comparison. It has been already remarked that the distinctive Anglian rite stops short at the Suffolk border ; and with possibly one or two exceptions unburnt burials are the rule among the East Saxons. Among the sepulchral pottery found in the county there does not appear to be any undoubted example of a cinerary urn such as are com- monly met with in the neighbouring Anglian district. In the Col- chester Museum there is indeed one such urn, but it formed part of a collection made in Suffolk and was probably discovered in that county. One vase from Peering, also preserved at the Castle, is barely 3 inches high and is certainly not of the size usual for the reception of calcined remains ; while another originally twice that height is not of the proper shape and was moreover found with two skulls on the same site. Mr. G. F. Beaumont, who excavated the Peering site, states his belief that several fragments of urns were found in the same field on other occasions, but cannot remember that any calcined bones were found there ; and his opinion that burial on that site was principally by inhumation, rather confirms the suspicion that the pottery fragments belonged not to cinerary urns but to ceremonial vases such as are often found with unburnt burials. A more crucial instance is perhaps the Heybridge urn, 6 inches high, now preserved at Colchester ; but in spite of its close resemblance to the Anglian type no record can be found at 1 Four are figured in 4rc6<ro/ogia, vol. xvi. pi. Ixix. * fiettria History of Northants, i. 239.
