A HISTORY OF KENT already mentioned. A green glass cup with pointed base and spreading lip, a finger-ring of silver wire with a spiral coil as bezel, and a debased example of the radiated brooch with diamond-shaped foot accompanied a crystal sphere with silver mounts and two loops. Among the Roman coins was one of Valentinian II. (375—92). The northern position of the head was the rule in this cemetery, and the following four graves [Nen. Brit. pis. vii. viii. xv.) contained skeletons so placed. The first contained brooches almost identical with those in a female grave with head south already referred to, of eminently Jutish appearance, while several bronze tubes of oval section belong to a not uncommon type, but are of unknown use. The second included what is described as a bow-brace, but was probably the handle of a shield with extensions to the circumference of the disc ; but it must be added that arrow-heads are stated to have been found in these mounds. Another grave was that of a young subject, including a necklace of beads and a fine jewelled brooch of the keystone variety (as pi. i.fig. 4) ; and the fourth was regarded as a companion grave to one containing nothing but pure Roman orna- ments and pointing also north and south. Its contents, however, cannot be mistaken, and the small square-headed brooch with diamond design on the foot, the white-metal studs of shoe pattern, and the woven gold thread are all familiar in female graves, though the radiated brooch in this case was of the continental type, rare in this country. A few Roman objects were found in other graves, and among the coins was one ascribed to Valentinian III. (d. 455). Bottles and vases of undoubted Roman ware occurred in the Chatham grave-mounds, but only one urn,^ which was found with a skeleton, at all resembled the cinerary urns found in the Anglian parts of England. Mr. Geo. Payne superintended the excavation of several graves in 1892 at Watts' Avenue," on the south side of Rochester, near St. Margaret's Church. The bodies had been placed in cists cut in the chalk, all with the head at the west end of the grave ; and it was observed that most were females. The customary iron knife was found with most, but little else of note with the exception of a gold kite- shaped pendant set with a carbuncle. Forty years before this discovery, twenty skeletons had been brought to light during excavations for cottages on Star Hill, Eastgate.' Five spear-heads were recovered, also a bronze bracelet of Roman work, an oblong bronze-gilt buckle-plate set with garnet and engraved with the usual animal design, a keystone brooch of ordinary type, and a number of beads. An iron spear-head and knives found 7 feet deep with a skeleton between Strood and Temple Farm in 1846 were preserved by the late Mr. Humphrey Wickham, ' and the skull examined by Dr. Davis, who pronounced it that of a man about sixty years of age." Six years later a ' Nen. Brit. pi. xxiii. fig. i, p. 93 ; a bottle is given as fig. 2,
- Coll. Cant. p. 121 : a few objects in the British Museum.
' Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc, ix. 408 (4 figs.). * Ibid. ii. 192. » Coll. Antiq. v. 136. 376
