BONE OBJECTS FOUND IN ROMAN WELL AT LEICESTER ROMANO-BRITISH LEICESTERSHIRE and was left as it was found, except that part was filled with concrete and used as the foundation of a new building. The excavations showed that there was no continuation of the sewer beyond the centre of the Jewry Wall, and it seems certain that it turned at an angle and went through or under- neath the wall into the town." Throsby said that it entered the town at the south end of the wall by way of St. Nicholas Street." Outside the angle, formed by the meeting of the northern and eastern walls of Ratae, opposite to where St. Margaret's Church now stands, Roman coins have often been found, and in a spot close to the angle thus made two wells or pits containing Roman relics, chiefly pottery, were discovered. In a third pit, about 14 ft. below the present surface, a basket, formed of wood and wicker, evidently sunk as a means of collecting water in a bed of gravel, was disinterred. It was 5 ft. 6 in. in height, and measured 5 ft. 6 in. by 3 ft. 6 in. at the bottorr, /ft. 6 in. by 5ft. 6 in. at the top. About aft. above the rim of the basket were visible indications of a ground line, on which were found part of a flint celt 4 in. long, and various bone articles. The basket itself was choked with rubbish pieces of stone, fragments of horns, and teeth of various animals, including the tusks of a boar, portions of skulls of two goats, two whetstones, two pointed pieces of iron, &c. The lower part contained a mass of weed, rushes, hay, and snail shells, blanched with age. Four feet above this line another level was visible. On this a pair of Roman shears, a rude crucible, and other things of the same date were seen. This level was 6 ft. above the basket. About 4ft. higher fragments of Roman pottery, small and coarse, were discovered. On the supposed Roman levels streaks of charred material were distinctly visible. In the upper crust of the bank of sand or gravel in which these things were found, small bits of Roman pottery were plentiful. From the general appearance of the bone articles found, and their similarity to antiquities discovered at Settle, in Yorkshire, it has been concluded that they were of a late Roman date." The bone articles found were : i, a circular ring, pierced with holes, 2! in. in diameter ; 2, a hexagonal handle, 2j in. long ; 3, a whistle, 3! in. long ; 4, a piece of bone pierced in the centre, i&in. long ; 5, a cylindrical object, 3! in. long, with wide oval slit ; 6, a tooth, perhaps of a dog, ijin. long, pierced for suspension ; 7, a boar's tusk, 3 1 in. long, two holes pierced at the broad end. Cemeteries. The principal cemetery of Ratae was outside the south- west corner of the Roman town. In the Abbey Meadow a number of cinerary urns containing bones have from time to time been discovered, Bellairs, Leu. jirch. Sac. viii, 40. " F. Thompson, Proc. Sac. Antlj. (Ser. 2), i, 243 (1860). 199 66 Ibid. ; and vii, 311-12.
