A HISTORY OF SUSSEX this rare type of spear-head being the pair of barbs that usually lie along the shaft and the disproportionate length and slender make of the metal stem, which was provided with a socket for a wooden shaft, though itself 30 inches long. About one grave in every ten contained the ordinary iron spear-head which is usually considered the mark of the Saxon warrior, but no spear could be found in the grave which con- tained one of the two swords met with in the cemetery, a fact in support of the view that the thane wielded the sword on horseback while the ceorl fought on foot, armed with the spear. On the other hand it was observed that four of the thirteen graves known to have been those of men, contained no spear-head. Any distribution of the entire number of graves between the sexes cannot now be attempted, but about ten per cent, were the interments of children. An analysis of the relics does, however, indicate that men alone were buried with strike-a-lights, tweezers,' and vessels of glass, pottery or wood ; while beads and other ornaments were confined to the other sex. Special attention must be drawn to the vases, which occur in twenty-two graves. Only one bucket was found, and that had hoops of iron 6 inches in diameter, which lay at the right of the head. The more customary bucket with bronze mounts was not re- presented except by a solitary fragment in the grave of a woman. Pottery vases, to be distinguished from the cinerary urns found in cremation districts, were found in twelve graves, all of men or boys, and included a Roman ' thumb-pot ' of New Forest ware like one found at Hassocks. In one grave two vases were discovered in association with a plain conical glass drinking horn, 5I inches high, and three other glasses of this type were found in the cemetery, the decoration consisting of applied glass threads, either encircling the cup (fig. 8) or in vertical loops (fig. 9). Two cups of ' mammiform ' type were recovered : one ornamented with threads, lay beneath a spear-head at the right shoulder, and the other, unfortu- nately shattered by the spade, had a bold quatrefoil design on the bottom, originally traced with applied threads. Of quite another pattern were the other three glasses, which brought the total up to nine. Two of these were of modern appearance, but were peculiar in having the foot hollow, while the third is at present without a parallel in this country.
- It is sometime'! asserted that these implements were used in sewing, to draw the thread through
holes made by a stiletto. Pottery Vase, High Down Cemetery
