FIG. 36. MORTARIUM INSCRIPTION, DEEP DALE. (Mr. Salt's Collection.) A HISTORY OF DERBYSHIRE Victorinus, Claudius Gothicus. There are many bow-fibulas (fig. 35), and three remarkable shield-shaped fibulas with central bosses (fig. 34), parallels to which have occurred in Poole's Hole, on the Roman Wall, and at Woodeaton in Oxfordshire ;* an enamelled dragon-shaped fibula of late Celtic character, assignable perhaps to the second century of our era, several penannular specimens, and a bronze 'chatelaine,' which also recurs at Poole's Hole. Further, there is much pottery, in particular embossed Samian,and the broken rim of a pehis or morfarium, inscribed with incised cursive lettering too fragmentary to be properly deciphered (fig. 36). There are also spindle-whorls of lead and pottery, needles of bone, small iron objects, bones of animals, a bit of red ochre used for rubbing something (p. 237), etc. Two fairly perfect interments were also noted in the midst of the rubbish stratum which contained these remains. One, found near the bottom of the valley in April, 1896, consisted of a full-length skeleton with a bronze armlet of noticeable workmanship (fig. 33), a bronze ring and pin, and fragments of a wheel-made urn containing burnt bones all enclosed in a cist-like structure of limestone blocks without a cover.* The other, found two years later, in the middle of the slope, was a cist of which one side was formed by the hill (fig. 37), containing a skeleton and an iron spear-head. Several other traces of burials were noted in the rubbish. 3 It is difficult to date them, but they must be either Roman or prehistoric ; they do not ap- pear to be later insertions. The age of the Roman remains is given roughly by the coins, of which the earli- est is dated A.D. 154, and the latest repre- sents an emperor who reigned A.D. 268-270. FIG. 37. BURIAL OUTSIDE THIRST HOUSE. Ine IlDUlaS 1 P. 235, below ; Bruce, Roman Wall (ed. 3, 1867), p. 226 ; Ashm. Mus. Oxford. A similar boss occurs on a slightly different disk-fibula from Hanham, near Bristol.
- ReRquary, 1897, p. 196. Turner, Ancient Remains near Buxton, p. 58. 3 Turner, p. 63.
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