A HISTORY OF KENT Roach Smith, however, attributed the coin to Eupardus, a bishop of Autun in the middle of the sixth century, and the rest included a coin of Justin (d. 527), a blundered copy of a Roman type, and a coin of the moneyer Leodulphus. As the map clearly shows, the downs to the south-east of Canterbury are thickly strewn with records of the past, and have been explored over a long period. In 1866 about twenty graves Fig. 3. Gold Coin-Pendant, ^^^^ ^^^^^ . workmen On Patrixbourne St. Martin s (j;. J r i Hill in Bifrons Park, 200 yards east of the road from Bridge and within an area 30 feet square. The relics com- prised two swords, two spear-heads, a shield-boss with the stays extending to the circumference,^ and a number of buckles and knives, taken promiscuously from the graves, which were, with one exception, east- and-west. Interred with a woman were found a necklace of amber and glass beads (the latter of double and treble form, like some from Northants'), a pair of small brooches set with garnets of keystone form (as pi. i. fig. 4), keys, a silver finger-ring, a buckle and stud, all of which are now in the collection of the Kent Archaeological Society." The excavations conducted by Mr. Godfrey Faussett in 1867 at Bifrons are of special importance, as they were carefully recorded,* and the relics now form part of the Kent Archaeological Society's collection at Maidstone. About one hundred graves were opened on the slope of the hill overlooking the Lesser Stour and about mile up stream from Patrixbourne Church ; and the whole of the district is thickly scattered with interments, perhaps more so than any other area in England. The ground was perfectly smooth, no doubt owing to con- tinued ploughing, and the slope was held to account for the direction of the majority of graves : they had been cut horizontally so as to avoid unnecessary labour, and the head was in these cases at the south or south-east end of the cutting in the chalk. A few, however, lay east and west, generally with the head at the latter point, and the explorer did not fail to notice a comparative scarcity of relics in these graves : both features suggesting a Christian origin. The brooches found were observed to be mostly in pairs, the square-headed variety (pi. i. fig. 2) being invariably worn with the pin-point upwards, the square head being below. Another important point is that no fewer than five graves in this, and at least two in a neighbouring, cemetery contained the remains of women with a crystal sphere and spoon (as pi. i. fig. 8) with perfor- ated bowl placed between the thighs. More than once these curious relics were associated with brooches of the Jutish square-headed type (as pi. i. fig. 3) and also of the bird-form, while gold braid was found near the skull as though belonging to the head-dress. Though crystal spheres are not unknown in post-Roman cemeteries on the Continent, > Douglas found the shields were generally I J to 2 ft. across {Nen. Brit. p. I2i). » Arch, xlviii. pi. xxiii. ; V.C.H. Northants, i. 233. » Arch. Cant. vi. 331 (three figs.). « Ibid. x. 298; xiii. 552. 342
