Crundale Grave 8

After this, we got by accident into one of the graves which had been opened by Lord Winchelsea, or by Mr. Forster, namely, on the brink, or side bank, of the hollow road. This grave was contiguous to and even reached into the barrow where we found the last mentioned vessels, so that they (namely, Lord Winchelsea, etc.) very narrowly missed of them at that time. Here we spent a great deal of time and labour before we discovered our error, which was owing to a rule we had in digging, namely, to follow such soil as appeared by its looseness to have been moved before,-for chalk never unites or becomes firm again after it has been once disturbed. At length we came to a large parcel of unburnt human bones, lying in all directions in a heap; these, we concluded, had been thrown in again by the above-mentioned persons, after they had gone to the bottom of the grave. Perhaps they were all the bones they found at one day's digging, for there seemed to be near a bushel of them, and among them, part of several different skulls, the pieces of which were carefully put one within the other, and placed all together by themselves.Our labour, however, was not entirely thrown away; for, as the labourers were filling the pit up again, a bystander happening to come too near the edge of it, with his weight forced down the side of the grave, which, having been removed before, was loose and rotten, when out of it came a small narrow-necked vessel [M 6788], which I think I may venture to call a lachrymal; and also a copper or brass ring [M 6769]. The former is made of white earth, like tobacco-pipe clay, and has been coloured over with black, and over that it has some white ornaments; it is four inches and a half high, and two inches and three-quarters diameter; its mouth is one inch and a quarter diameter.