ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS garnet centre. Special mention must be made of a very large buckle with garnets in a scale-pattern, and along the centre a fish in high relief, the borders containing knot-work filigree. The buckle and corresponding plate are much in the Prankish style, and it is just conceivable that the fish was a Christian symbol in this instance and also on a smaller buckle found at Faversham ; it is frequent on con- tinental remains of this period. In the same valley, about half-way to Canterbury, important discoveries were made in the eighteenth century. Dr. Cromwell Mortimer, Secretary of the Royal Society, had in 1730 superintended the excavation of, and reported upon, a number of barrows in this same area, though he calls it Swerdling (Swadling) Down, in the parish of Chartham. His account is published by Douglas,' and in an abridged form by Faussett,^ the latter, as a conscientious and eminently sane explorer, having much fault to find with the doctor's preconceptions and conclusions. A brief summary will be enough for our present purpose, and no time need be spent in proving that these graves were not those of Roman soldiers who fell in Caesar's decisive victory over the Britons in Kent. He describes the site of his discoveries with some precision, the mounds being situated about half a mile south of Chartham church along the top of a hill overlooking the Stour, between the roads from Canterbury to Wye and Chilham. The county asylum has since been erected about i mile east of this burial-ground, which like many others in the country was popularly associated with the Danes (Danes' Banks). The graves had commonly been cut due east and west, the head being as usual at the west end, and a mass of flints generally covering the body, but no notice was taken of any coffins. The bones are said to have been burnt, but Faussett, who as a boy ten years old had been present at these excavations, was able to correct the doctor's mis-statement. One grave, probably that of a woman, con- tained a fine gold and silver brooch (as pi. i. fig. i, but with four points), two glass phials, garnets mounted in gold as pendants, and an ornament of gold wire ^ with a cross in the centre and a border of four coils : all these are illustrated in Douglas' Nenia, pi. v. To the last-named ornament there was attached by a chain a round-headed pin that may have been a ' union pin,' as found on Breach Down. A crystal sphere and what was no doubt a bronze bowl, 6| inches in diameter (though described as a helmet or skull-cap), completed the furniture. Another mound covered a burial in which was an urn of red earth, and also a large black cinerary urn, the latter doubtless of Roman origin. Buckles, toilet articles, earrings, and the heads of a javelin and arrow were also found, but there was nothing remarkable in about twenty barrows, of which the largest was 6 feet high and 30 feet in diameter at the base. Mention must however be made of two shield-bosses, one hemispherical and the other conical, found at the head of a skeleton ; of a gold 1 Nen. Brit. pp. 99-107 ; plan of this cemetery on pi. xxiv. > Inv. Sep. pp. 162-8. 3 Pag. S,ix. pi. xi. fig. 3. I 369 47
