Page:VCH Kent 1.djvu/464

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A HISTORY OF KENT black, one at the feet, it is clear they were merely accessory, and not cinerary, vessels. It may be added that a pair of bronze brooches found at Horton Kirby, and now in the Kent Archaeological Society's collection at Maidstone, belong to the saucer type, which seems practic- ally confined to the West Saxon area. Another pair from the King's Field, Faversham, are in the same collection ;' others from this site and one said to be from Dover are in the British Museum. Further up the valley of the Darenth, one of the most interesting relics of the early Anglo-Saxon period was discovered in i860 by labourers digging for brick-earth near the railway north of Lulling- stone, and is now in the possession of Sir Wm. Hart Dyke. It consists of a bronze bowl' 10 inches in diameter, with various bronze ornaments attached to the outside ' and was associated with human skulls and bones, as well as fragments of iron and pottery. The profile closely resembles that of the bowl found in Lochar Moss, Dumfriesshire, con- taining a beaded collar of Late Celtic work, and similar bowls are known from Ireland as well as from South Britain. The four discs which serve to attach the chain-hooks to the outside of the bowl are ornamented with the Celtic trumpet pattern ; and several discoveries of the kind seem to show that native British art was not entirely sup- pressed, even in Kent, by four centuries of Roman domination. The exact date of the Lullingstone and similar bowls cannot at present be determined, but the cruciform character' of the openwork disc outside the bottom of the bowl may well be due to Christian influence ; and the stag-like animals resemble in style the symbol of St. Luke in the Book of Durrow,* an Irish illuminated MS. attributed to the seventh century, but probably later. An interesting group of grave-mounds (barrows or tumult) can still be seen in Greenwich Park' south-west of the Observatory, and the depressions at their summit show that the excavator has been at work. The footpath that now runs through them is at a mean distance of 100 yards north of the reservoir, for which twelve other grave-mounds were cleared away, but on representations from the Archaeological Institute" and at a sacrifice of ^^850, the present site (SE. of the existing group) was substituted in 1844. Fifty had been thoroughly explored by Rev. James Douglas' in 1784, but comparatively few relics were recovered. The graves were shallow, being in the gravel about 18 inches below the original surface, and the decayed remains of coffins were noticed. Iron knives, a shield-boss, and spear-heads measuring 10 and 15 inches, were taken from some of the graves, others evidently being those of women, and containing well-preserved locks of hair as well as linen and woollen fabric. « Proc. Soc. Antiq. Land. xv. 123. » Arch. Cant. iii. pi. i. p. 44 ; Proc. Soc. Antiq. and ser. i. 187 ; Archaeologia, Ivi. 41. 3 Compare the Kingston bowls {Inv. Sep. pi. xvi. figs. 6, 8 : grave 205), but the cross is not alto- gether convincing. « Westwood, Facsimiles, etc., pi. v. p. 22. s pjan in Arch. Cant. xiii. 15. • Journal, i. 166, 168, 249. ' Nen. Brit. 89, 56 (note). 378