Page:VCH Norfolk 1.djvu/377

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ROMANO-BRITISH NORFOLK SOUTHREY Stalham . . Stratton (Long), SWAFFHAM Tasburgh . Tharston . Thetford . Thorpe Hamlet Threxton Fig. 33. Brooch from SwAFFHAM. Roman vessels and coins, i Domitian, i Postumus, I Constantine, 1 Urbs Roma [Cambridge Antiquarian Society's Report of May 2, 1853]. The British Museum has some fragments from here, and also a small hoard of illegible minims found at Little London on the borders of Southrey and Feltwell. Pottery [Dawson Turner, 23,060, pp. 152-155]. Urns and 'sepulchral hearth ' (? kiln) found 1773 ; also 'numerous coins and other Roman antiquities' [Evans and Britton, pp. 214 foil. ; Hart, p. II; Ordnance Survey, xcvii. N.W.]. Oval jewelled fibula, perhaps late Roman work [Norfolk Archaeology, v. 354 ; Archceological 'Journal, xiv. 287]. See %• 33- Bronze handle of bucket, presented to British Museum by Greville Chester. It seems to be of very late date, and possibly a fifth century import. Com- pare Rygh, Norske Oldsager, fig. 345 = Archaeological "Journal, xxxiv. 247. A somewhat similar piece from Hod Hill is in the British Museum. Bronze fibula (Plowright Collection) [Fox, Archaological Journal, xlvi. 364; compare Dawson Turner, MS. 23,060, p. 208]. These SwafTham finds seem scattered discoveries. Earthwork, 700 yards west of Roman road, pre-Roman [Ordnance Survey, Ixxxvii. S.W.]. Coin of some Antonine emperor found inside the earthwork [Fox, Archtsological Journal, xlvi. 364]. 'Coins of the lower empire' [Gough, Add. to Camden, ii. 188]. Perhaps error for Thurton. Coins, according to Sir Thos. Browne [Urnburial, ch. ii.] from Hadrian to Valens. Coins of Vespasian (silver and copper), Domitian, Trajan, Pius, Faustina, Constantine L, Crispus (aJi copper) are mentioned by Blomefield, ii. 11, 12 ; Thos. Martin, History of Thetford {LonAon, 1779), pp. 12, 13. A lamp is said by Dawson Turner, MS. 23,061, pp. 24, 25, to have been found at Thetford in 1827 under the Red Mound, and the lamp he figures is now in Norwich Museum. But the Curator tells me it was brought from Carthage, and presented by Edward Stanley, Bishop of Norwich, and it certainly has the look of a foreign object. Thetford has been called Sitomagus by Camden and others, and also Iciani ; but it does not seem to be a Roman site at all : its earth- works are post-Roman. Camden's ' river Sit or Thet ' is a piece of characteristically bad etymologizing. Large stones with burnt earth, potsherds, iron and bronze fragments of weapons, etc., a ' Second Brass ' of Nero, a bronze lamp, found in 1862-3 in garden of the Rev. W. Frost — apparently Roman and post-Roman interments mixed [Fox, Archaological Journal, xlvi. 365; Norfolk Archaology, vi. 385]. Amphora, charcoal and cal- cined flints from same spot [ibid. vii. 349]. Pottery in grounds of Mr. F. Ranson, Mousehold (now in Norwich Museum [ibid. viii. 334]. Thorpe Hamlet is an eastern suburb of Norwich ; possibly there was a dwelling in this quarter (compare Heigham). Samian and other pottery including pelves and amphoree ; urn found with burnt bones and coin of an Antoninus, found standing on a tiled floor, 4 feet square, in 1857, on edge of Saham Tony parish (Threxton House Coll.) [Fox, Archaological Journal, xlvi. 365]. 321 y