A HISTORY OF KENT from this country and Norway.' Another burial contained, also at the feet, an iron trivet, resembling one of bronze which supported the bowl just referred to. Arms were not numerous on this site : only one sword is mentioned and nine shield-bosses, one of which was with the sword. Of eleven spears noted (not always with the shield) ten lay outside the coffin on the right, some being wrapped in fabric. What is called by the excavator a ' pilum ' (probably a lance) occurred in twenty-six cases, on the right or left indifferently. In one case the weapon had been wrapped in some material and reversed, while two others were found to have been 4 feet long, by the position of the head and ferrule. The shield, as at Gilton, was shown by the rivets to have had a thickness of i inch. Glass vessels appeared near the head in five graves, and ivory was used to some extent for ornament. Several earrings were found in women's graves, and armlets in seven instances ; but the principal feature was the comparative abundance of amethyst beads of the usual pattern (as pi. ii. fig. 12), fourteen graves containing one or more specimens. Another peculi- arity was the occurrence in seven graves of iron arrow heads,^ which are scarce on Anglo-Saxon sites, but have been found in the Jutish cemetery on Chessell Down in the Isle of Wight.* Six interments included keys or girdle-hangers, and the same number iron shears, evidently used by women, as were the cylindrical thread-boxes of which one was found on this site ; one of the spindle-whorls recovered was associated with two ivory spindles.^ Among other relics may be mentioned a touchstone with gold marks in a woman's grave, and six Roman coins, of Claudius (d. 54), Gallienus (d. 268), Probus (d. 282), and Carausius (d. 293), and two of Constantine (d. 337). In view of similar finds elsewhere it may be stated here that one grave contained the skull of a polecat and bones (but no skulls) of a number of birds, moles, or mice. Three brooches of excellent workmanship must be noticed, having a three- pointed star on filigree ground (as pi. i. fig. i), keystone (as pi. i. fig. 4), and T-shaped garnets (pi. i. fig. 14) respectively, the first two being from the same grave ; but a detailed description is necessary of the remarkable grave that contained the ' Kingston brooch.' This was one of ten or eleven double burials noticed in this cemetery, and deserves special mention. Its dimensions were alto- gether abnormal — 6 feet deep, 10 feet long, and 8 feet broad — and the iron-bound coffin appeared to have fitted the grave, but the skull was remarkably small, and was apparently that of a woman whose child had been buried at her feet outside the coffin. Near the right shoulder was the finest Anglo-Saxon brooch " hitherto discovered (pi. i. fig. 10). It is of gold, the face being covered with cell-work of garnets and blue glass pastes intermingled with filigree panels of much debased animal forms, > For list and illustrations see Archaeologia, vol. 56, p. 39. 2 A conical boss is figured in Hone Ferales, plate xxvii. fig. 23. ' Itiv. Sep. p. 60, fig. I.
- V.C.H. Hants, i. 388. ^ Jnv. Sep. p. 93. « Inv. Sep. pi. i. fig. I (coloured).
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