Guilton Grave 8

Grave, as before, about three feet deep. It was very visible that this person was buried in a large and very thick chest or coffin, which had either been excavated by fire, or perhaps been burnt to a certain degree, in order to make it the more durable. It was in some places, particularly at the head and feet, near three inches thick; perhaps more; for at both these places I took up several large handfuls of black crumbly dust, mixed with large wood-coals, and on each side there were very manifest indications of the coffin, much rotten wood and black dust, mixed with wood-coals, reaching the whole length of, nay, much beyond the skeleton. The bones were greatly decayed. Among the small remains of the skull, I found a long, slender, brass pin, with a large round head [M6014]; this I shall not at all hesitate to call an acus discriminalis,[1] or pin for the hair. About the place of the neck, I found nine small beads of baked earth, as before: one of them was somewhat larger than the rest, and among them several loose teeth, which were very firm: I suppose they had fallen out of the lower jaw, but that was quite gone. Here were also many pieces of iron; but all of them so rusted and swollen, and withal so very rotten, that it was impossible to give any guess either at their form or use, nor could they be handled without their falling to pieces. At the feet and beyond the coffin, was a round brass trivet, about twelve inches diameter, on which stood a flat brass pan or kettle, eighteen inches wide and about four inches deep [M 6015]; it has two handles; it is much broken and decayed, and has been patched and mended in several places.[2] A woman's grave.[1] See Montfaucon's Antiquité Expliquée, translated by Humphries, vol. iii, fol. 32, pl. 10, fig. 17. Supplem. fol. 263, pl. 86, fig. 2.[2] Compare with the bronze basin found at Gilton, in the collection of Mr. Rolfe, of Sandwich, engraven in Archaeologia, vol. xxx, p. 133. This basin is mended with pieces of metal stamped with a figure of a minstrel dancing and playing on a viol, and grotesque forms of animals.- C.R.S.