raised at a period evidently posterior to the settlement of the Romans; since in these have been discovered articles both of a warlike and domestic nature, very dissimilar to those deposited in the larger tumuli of the Celtic and Belgic tribes, from which these barrows differ likewise in construction; and these are conceived to have been the tombs of the later Britons, or early Saxon settlers, of the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries.

In several parts of Kent are clusters or ranges of these small tumuli, as on Chatham Downs, at Ash, at St. Margaret's Cliff, between Deal and Dover, on Barham Downs near Canterbury, at Chartham near Canterbury, at Sibertswould, now Shepherds well, and in Greenwich Park. They occur likewise at Dinton, near Aylesbury, Bucks, at Winstor, Derbyshire, on Wimbleton Common, and elsewhere. Many, however, have been levelled for agricultural purposes.

Most of these have been found to contain interments by simple inhumation, accompanied by various warlike weapons, ornaments, decorations of the person, appendages of dress, and other funeral relics.

Some have been opened in which a spear-head, the boss or umbo of a shield, a knife, a buckle, and sometimes a sword, all of iron, and a vessel of earthenware, have been deposited with the body, apparently that of a male.

With interments of females, fibulæ or broaches and clasps of bronze, armillæ or bracelets, pensile ornaments, and beads of amber, glass, and earth, have been found.

Other articles that have been placed in these tumuli consist of vessels of earthen ware, glass cups, crystal balls, iron rings, hooked instruments of iron, bow braces, volsellæ or tweezers of bronze, finger rings of silver, brass, and iron, and coins of Anthemius, and Justinian, and others of the Lower Empire.

From fragments of iron nails and decayed wood found occasionally in these barrows, the dead are supposed to have been sometimes buried in coffins; and in several of the tumuli in Greenwich Park, braids of human hair, and shreds of woollen cloth, in the latter of which the bodies appeared to have been enveloped, were discovered.

The spear-head has been generally found near the right shoulder, the knife by the side of the body, and the umbo of the shield lying between the bones of the legs; this latter protuberance was no appendage to the bucklers of the Roman soldiery, but the bossy shield' was used by certain of the German tribes, so early as the first century; for we are informed, that in the battle fought between Agricola and Galgacus, the German auxiliaries of the Roman army, the Batavians, struck and mangled the faces of the enemy with the bosses of their shields. Two centuries later, as we have before noticed, the bossy iron shield' was common amongst the Caledonian tribes, and is often alluded to by Ossian. Those found in the small barrows of the later Britons, or early Saxons, are about six inches in diameter, have a rim through which they were riveted or fastened by nails to the shield, and generally terminate in a button. u At a later period they assumed a more conical form, and ended in a point; but I am not aware that any of the latter kind have ever been discovered in barrows.

The swords which are sometimes found on the left side of the body, have no guards; but at the extremity of the handle there is a small cross bar, about as long as the breadth of the blade, which probably served in some measure to secure the casing or handle of wood; the length of the blade is

u A very early MS. in the British Museum, Harl. Lib. No. 603, represents a Saxon warrior with a convex shield, with an iron boss terminating in a button. Meyrick's Crit. Inq. Introd. p. lxii.

generally about thirty inches, of the handle five more, and the blades are two inches in breadth, double edged, and sharp pointed, and seem to have been inserted in wooden scabbards, which from the length of time have perished.

The buckle of brass or iron, often discovered near the middle of the body, was appended to and served to fasten the girdle or belt which encircled it.

The fibulæ taken from many of these small barrows are broaches of gold, silver, and brass or copper, with a moveable acus or pin, which perforated the garment, and served to connect one part of the dress with another; by the men they were used to fasten the tunic and chlamys or cloak on the right or left shoulder, and by the women the vestment in front of the breast. They are differently shaped; some oblong, and not very dissimilar, though much smaller, to the guard beneath the trigger of a gun, and with the acus compressed into the socket have been compared to a bow ready strung; others are of a circular form, varying from one to three inches in diameter, and these latter are sometimes ornamented with engraving and milling, and enchased with garnets and turquoises. Besides these, are clasps of bronze and silver, which fastened the zones or girdles of the females.

The pensile ornaments or pendants are often of gold, set with garnets and other stones, and variously ornamented, and of an oval or circular shape; they were suspended from the neck by means of a loop attached to them, in the same manner as the Roman bullæ.

The beads which have often been found in these small tumuli are of amber, glass, and vitrified earth; the two former kinds have, by their long continuance in the earth, acquired an opaque thin coating or incrustation, and those of amber are irregular in shape; those of vitrified earth are

of variegated colours, with stripes of red, green, yellow, white, and blue, spirally, transversly, and perpendicularly disposed. In the Gododin of Aneurin, a poem of the sixth century, mention is made of the wreath of amber beads with which Hengist, the Saxon chieftain, is therein represented to have been adorned. From the situation, however, in which they commonly appear in sepulchral tumuli, their use as a necklace is evident; and they are seldom or never discovered in the same grave with articles of a warlike description, but principally with female interments.

The glass cups or vases, and crystal balls, occasionally extracted from these tumuli, are thought to have been appropriated to certain funeral rites and magical purposes; and the bottles and vessels of earthenware, for libation and lustral purification.

From filaments of cloth found accreted to the acus or iron pin of the fibula and buckles, and from the impression of woollen and linen on iron arms and instruments, it would seem that the dead were buried in their customary apparel, with their arms and personal decorations properly arranged.

The funeral relics discovered in these tumuli, considered as the graves of the Romanized or later Britons and early Saxons, bear an affinity in some respects to the sepulchral remains of the Romans: but the arms, ornaments, and articles deposited, vary from those of that nation; nor was the mode of barrow burial ever prevalent amongst the Romans. Amongst other articles, it is true, we sometimes meet with coins of the lower empire, but as many of these are of a period subsequent to the final departure of the Romans from this country, they cannot be considered as a criterion whereby we are able with certainty to ascertain to what people these interments may be ascribed; much must, undoubtedly, be left to conjecture: from the

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long continuance, however, of the Romans in this island, and the intercourse and frequent movements which subsequently took place between the legions formed out of the tribes of Britain, and those of Germany and Gaul, the supposition cannot be otherwise than reasonable, strengthened also by a comparison between these and the ancient British tumuli and Roman places of burial, that an intermixture or blending of funeral customs took place, and that the later Britons and early Saxons followed in their burials partly their own, and partly the rites, adopted by them, of the Romans.

A range of small tumuli on Borrough Hill, near Daventry, Northamptonshire, were opened in the year 1823, under the inspection of Mr. Baker, the historian of that county.

One of these exhibited a simple interment by cremation; the floor was covered with a single course of small stones, in a circle of about four feet diameter; upon it was spread, about two inches in thickness, the burnt ashes and bones of the deceased, intermixed with charcoal and red earth. At the east end lay a rude buckle of brass without a tongue, and also a considerable quantity of the same metal so corroded, that it broke to pieces on removing. Above was another single course of stones, succeeded by a stratum of fine dark earth, nearly a foot thick, which was surmounted by stones apparently piled with care to the height of near two feet, and thinly covered with turf.

In another, at the depth of two feet from the apex, was a small circular cist, just large and deep enough to contain an urn of light brown ware, about eight inches high, covered with five stones, the points of which were rudely angular, meeting in the centre, and surmounted by the fifth.

Another, which scarcely exceeded a foot in its highest elevation, disclosed, about three feet below the central