A HISTORY OF LONDON latter is of a low coped form, and made of the same kind of stone, with a cross paty in relief extending from end to end, and evidently of late Saxon work ; whereas the coffin itself is of superior workmanship and some- what shorter, with three sides plain and the fourth furnished with a Latin inscription within a panel flanked by two Amazon shields, also in sunk panels. The dedication is by Valerius Superventor and Marcellus to the memory of their father, Valerius Amandinus. The last name is of late form, and Superventor was a military term coined, apparently, in the fourth century, as it is explained by Vegetius about 385,'" and seems to have been applied to certain irregular troops, but appears as the proper name of a bishop at the Council of Orange, a.d. 441. It is most unlikely that the skeleton found within the coffin was that of Valerius Amandinus, though lime (such as is often seen in Roman sarcophagi) was found hard by, with fragments of brick, probably Roman, and part of a millstone, apparently of Niedermendig stone, and of Roman date. The lid alone suffices to show that this interment in the Abbey green was long subsequent to the Roman period ; and reference has been most aptly made to the story of St. Etheldreda, who died in 679, and was given burial in the abbey-church at Ely in 695. The saint's remains were collected by her sister, the Abbess Sexburga, who sent elsewhere for a coffin of stone, there being no quarries in that neighbourhood. A sarcophagus of white marble was found outside the walls of the Roman station called Grantacester by the English, and was selected to hold the relics of the foundress. It had, no doubt, been made and interred before the close of the Roman period, and imported, like that found at Lower Clapton, from some marble-quarry on the Continent. That the Westminster sarcophagus was likewise appropriated and buried in consecrated ground centuries after its original interment is therefore highly probable, but it need not have been removed from a distance, for there are some traces of Roman occupation in Thorney and its vicinity, and a Roman road seems to have passed near the site (p. 29). It may therefore be classed with other sepulchral monuments similarly found approximately in situ within the London area. A group of stone coffins has next to be noticed, the interest of which has been impaired by unscientific excavation, but enough is recorded to show they were more or less closely connected with burials of another kind in cemeteries that may have been in use during a considerable period of the Roman occupation. Before proceeding to mixed cemeteries, however, we may notice some associated burials of interest at Old Ford." Beyond the south-west end of a stone coffin, and partly protected by the overhanging lid, was an amphora or two-handled vessel of pottery containing the unburnt bones of two adults. In what condition or circumstances they were thus deposited cannot now be determined, but the coffin and amphora were in all probability interred at the same time. In one account ^^ of the discovery in Ratcliffe Field, mention is made of coins of Pupienus, Gordian, and emperors of that time, and a date (about 239) deduced for the two burials, in stone and leaden coffins respec- tively, found on the site. Maitland," however, adds that various urns, with " Arch. Joum. xxvii, 261, 106 ; Lond. andMidd. Arch. Soc. Trans, iv, 69. " Lond. andMidd. Arch. Soc. Tram, iii, pi. vi, fig. 2 (coffin), p. 2 1 1. " Weever, And. Fun. Monum. 30. Hist. Lond. i, 1380. 14
