A HISTORY OF LEICESTERSHIRE certainly suggestive of the late Celtic pottery of the Aylesford and Essex type. There are one or two vessels in Leicester Museum of rather coarse manufacture, which may also be of this period. MISCELLANEOUS ANTIQUITIES A few miscellaneous antiquities remain to be described. A cist burial, probably of the prehistoric age, was discovered at Stonton Wyville 19 in the year 1869. The grave consisted of slabs of stone set up in the form of a stone cist, and contained the skeleton of an adult person, with the leg-bones gathered up, lying on the side, whilst some charcoal and ashes were found near it. The size of the cist was 3 ft. 6 in. in length, and i ft. 10 in. in greatest width ; at the east end it narrowed to a width of about i ft., whilst the west end terminated in the form of the bow of a boat. Three slabs of ironstone, ingeniously put together, inclosed the north side of the grave ; another slab of stone was placed across the eastern end, and the south part was built up of small stones, making a kind of rubble wall. The cist was found at a depth of 6 ft. below the surface of the church- yard, and on the spot where the south aisle of the Norman church formerly stood a situation which suggests the possibility of the burial being of Norman or mediaeval date. The circumstances of the burial, however, the crouched-up position of the skeleton, the associated ashes and charcoal, and the method in which the cist was constructed, all point with conclusive unanimity to a prehistoric origin. ANCIENT BRITISH COINS Of the few ancient British coins found in Leicestershire one or two are of considerable interest. An uninscribed gold coin found at Hallaton belongs to a type which is particularly worthy of note from the fact that it proves the derivation of the cruciform ornament which occurs on the coins of Tasciovanus and Andro- comius from the laureate busts of the early coins. Sir John Evans points out that the obverse (consisting of cruciform ornament of two wreaths with two open crescents back to back, and locks of hair in the angle spaces) resembles the coins found at Wonersh ; whilst the reverse (comprising a fairly well- shaped horse, a radiated pellet, perhaps the sun, and a wheel below the horse) is more nearly connected with the Whaddon Chase coins of Buckingham- shire. A coin found near Leicester, much like the type inscribed TAXCI, but without other inscription, is probably one of the coins of Tasciovanus. Above the usual figure of a horse is the representation of a bull's head, a curious and significant coincidence, in view of the two representations of bulls' heads on the mounts of late Celtic buckets in this county. It points, perhaps, to the existence of some kind of cult of the bull in this district, and probably forms 19 Trans. Lac. Arcbit. and Arch. Sue. iv, 7-10. 174
