A HISTORY OF KENT between the rays, and the face covered with cell-work of garnets and blue glass imitating lapis-lazuli. On the back besides the pin is a loop for suspension, as on the famous Kingston brooch (fig. 4). It lay on the breast of a female skeleton, and underneath it were nine coloured glass beads with inlaid rope pattern, a melon-shaped Roman glass bead and metal fragments. Near the left arm was an annular bronze brooch with engraved design, and on the left hip was a bronze bracelet. Two other graves contained iron shears, and another had, besides beads of glass and amethyst, a pair of earrings, and two pieces of bone or teeth of the dog, tipped with metal and bored for suspension. In 1 880-1 about forty graves were discovered on the Rondeau estate at the west end of Sittingbourne, on the north side of Wat- ling Street.' They were situated in an area which contained many Roman burials after cremation ; and though at first sight it might be inferred that here the two civilizations intermingled, it must be remem- bered that cremation ceased about the middle of the third century ; and the unburnt burials, with their characteristic weapons, are probably of the sixth century. A sword was found bearing traces of a wooden sheath, and an iron spur from the site is a rarity. An amber-coloured glass goblet was in the same grave as a shield-boss and had therefore been buried with a man ; while a red-ware pitcher had an impressed design of Prankish aspect, arranged in wavy lines. Three other swords and shield-bosses, both conical and of the usual pattern, are also in the national collection, to which several objects of interest from graves at Milton-next-Sittingbourne (collected by the late Mr. Humphrey Wood) have been recently added. A gold finger-ring of Roman work- manship with the broad bezel set with a sard intaglio was found in 1889 with a skeleton laid with the head at the west end of the grave, in a brick-field to the north-east of Milton^; in the grave were also a glass vessel, a bronze-gilt buckle, and an iron spear-head, this last point- ing to a Teutonic origin, though the ring must date from the second century. Besides these, three large silver brooches of the square-headed type set with square garnets and ornamented with the engraved animal forms common in northern Europe during the sixth century, were found in the neighbourhood and are preserved in a defective condition. Above all, a fine jewel of cell-work, exhibited with these in the British Museum, shows the wealth and craftsmanship of the period. It is of fiddle-back form (pi. i. fig. 13), the base and partitions being of gold ; the settings remaining are garnets and sapphire (centre), but several have been lost and probably were of blue glass imitating lapis-lazuli. It is not in the true Kentish style, and is certainly earlier than the majority of jewels found in the county ; possibly it was made across the Channel, and the nearest parallel is a buckle-plate found near Houdan, Seine-et-oise.' ' Proc. Soc. Antiq. Land. viii. 275, 506; Payne, Coll. Cant. 108, where earlier discoveries are also recorded (1869-71). 2 Site marked on map in Coll. Cant. p. 124; for ring, see p. 119. ' Coll. Cant. p. 120; Coll. Antiq. iv. p. 188. pi. xlv. 374
