ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS their frequent occurrence in Kent with brooches of a local character is a fact of considerable importance, and points to some special function assigned to women in this region. A certain number of objects from these graves are certainly of Roman manufacture, while two long brooches (as fig. 14) of bronze are early examples of a type subsequently developed in the Anglian area. Several jewelled ornaments are not of the ordinary kind but resemble continental work, and may be the rude beginnings of the Kentish inlaid work. In one grave of a woman there were found, with a pair of radiated brooches (as fig. 13) and other ornaments, four gold bracteate pendants, three of which bear the usual embossed decoration of dismembered animal-forms, while the fourth has a distorted human figure like that frequently seen on Scan- dinavian specimens. To the same foreign influence may doubtless be assigned the swastikas engraved on a sword-pommel and belt-plate from this cemetery. On the downs between Beakesbourne and Adisham, at a point about 4 miles south-east of Canterbury, excavations were conducted by Faussett in 1773.* Some of the mounds had been destroyed in planting trees, and nine burials had been at some indefinite period covered with a long bank, regarded by the explorer as part of a fortification. The grave-mounds varied greatly in size, and one reached the abnormal dimensions of 70 feet in diameter and 10 feet in height at the centre, but nothing was found with the skeleton it covered. Another remark- able grave is described and illustrated as cruciform, the four ends corresponding with the cardinal points, and the head lying at the west end, but it was suggested that two graves had been cut at this spot at different times in opposite directions ; and this view is supported by a discovery of the sherds of a cinerary urn in the mound. On the other hand, the excavation measured 1 1 feet each way and at each extremity was an arched recess about i foot deep in the chalk, containing wood- ashes and scraps of iron : this may be taken to prove that the cruciform cutting was intentional. Of the forty-five graves opened, twenty-nine had coffins which in two cases were seen to be of oak, and all but three had been more or !ess burnt. Besides the exceptionally large mound already referred to, two of fair proportions consisted of flints ; and one mound had been erected over two skeletons placed in a sitting posture with their backs against the head of the grave. Bones of small animals were found in two instances, the largest mound containing several heaps, but here as elsewhere the bones of the head were missing, so that it was difficult to recognize the species. Fragments of urns, including red Gaulish and Roman ware, were noticed in several cases, and coins of Diocletian and Maximian, his partner in empire (d. 305), were found. Also suggestive of Roman civilization were two pieces of openwork leather in different graves, probably belonging to sandals. Only one weapon was found, a lance on the left of the body ; but there was a fair sprinkling of shears, keys, > Inventorium Sefulchrak, pp. 144-59. ' Ibid. p. 152. 343
