Llewellynn Frederick William Jewitt

“ Underneath the large stones lay the skeleton of a man, in the prime of life, and of fine proportions, apparently the sole occupant of the mound; who had been interred while enveloped in a skin of dark-red colour, the hairy surface of which had left many traces both upon the surrounding earth and upon the verdigris, or patina, coating; a bronze axe-shaped celt and dagger deposited with the skeleton. ”

“ CHAPTER XV. Anglo-Saxon Period—Fibulæ—Enamelled circular Fibulæ—Gold Fibulæ—Pendant Cross—Cruciform Fibulæ—Penannular Fibulæ—Irish and English examples—Pendant Ornaments, etc.
The fibulæ of the Anglo-Saxon period are the most remarkable, perhaps, of any of the products of the grave-mounds of that people. They are of extreme interest, not merely from their design and the excellence of their workmanship, or from their various forms and styles of ornamentation, but because by their varieties the different races to which they belonged can, in great measure, be determined. ”

“ In these counties the Roman was, it would seem, more of a “bird of passage” (as well as, to some extent, a “bird of prey”) than a settler, and the consequence is, that no remains—or next to no remains—of villas or of settlements are found, and that where burial has taken place it has not unusually been in the same mound with those of an earlier period. The Ancient Briton raised the mounds over the remains of his own people; and his Roman subjugator, as occasion required, took possession of them, and therein laid his own dead. ”

“ Interments in the Celtic grave-mounds were both by inhumation and cremation, and the modes of interment, in both these divisions, was very varied.
Where inhumation obtained, the body was sometimes laid on its side, in a contracted position; at others, extended full length on its back or side; and in other instances, again, was placed in an upright sitting or kneeling posture. Occasionally, too, where more than one body has been buried at the same time, they have been laid face to face, with their arms encircling each other; at other times an infant has been placed in its mother’s arms. ”

“ The situations chosen by the early inhabitants for the burial of their dead were, in many instances, grand in the extreme. Formed on the tops of the highest hills, or on lower but equally imposing positions, the grave-mounds commanded a glorious prospect of hill and dale, wood and water, rock and meadow, of many miles in extent, and on every side stretching out as far as the eye could reach, while they themselves could be seen from afar off in every direction by the tribes who had raised them, while engaged either 4 in hunting or in their other pursuits. ”

“ They are very abundant in Derbyshire barrows, and, indeed, are so frequently found in them, that their presence in a mound is considered to be a certain indication of the presence of human remains. “The barrows of Derbyshire, a hilly, almost mountainous, county, abounding with beautiful brooks and rills, inhabited by the water-vole, were made use of for its hybernacula, or winter retreats, into which it stored its provisions, and where it passed its time during the cold and frosty season. ”

“ Fortunately the mounds and cemeteries are particularly rich in remains, and thus enable us to form a clearer idea of the habits, and manners, and lives of our Saxon forefathers than we can of their predecessors. In Kent, Sussex, and the Isle of Wight, Saxon graves abound on the Downs; and in Derbyshire, Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, Northamptonshire, Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, Norfolk, and Yorkshire, cemeteries of more or less extent and importance exist, with here and there a solitary barrow, or a group of barrows. ”

“ It was our good fortune to open a barrow which afforded a more instructive collection of relics than has ever been discovered in the county, and which are not surpassed in interest by any remains hitherto recovered from any Anglo-Saxon burying-place in the kingdom. ”

“ Flints, i.e., various instruments formed of flint, are undoubtedly the most abundant of any relics of the Ancient Britons found in or about grave-mounds. They are extremely varied in form, and many of them are of the most exquisite workmanship—such, indeed, as would completely baffle the skill, great though that skill undoubtedly is, of “Flint Jack”31 to copy. ”

“ It is true that here and there in Derbyshire, as in other counties, an early grave-mound exists in the southern or lowland portion of the county; but, as a rule, they may be almost said to be peculiar, and confined, to the northern, or hilly district, where in some parts they are very abundant. Indeed, there are districts where there is scarcely a hill, even in that land, where
“Hills upon hills,
Mountains on mountains rise,”
where a barrow does not exist or is not known to have existed. ”

“ Is it too much to suppose that the discovery of lead may 32 be traced to the funeral pyre of our early forefathers? I think it not improbable that, the fact of seeing the liquid metal run from the fire as the ore which lay about became accidentally smelted, would give the people their first insight into the art of making lead—an art which we know was practised at a very early period in Derbyshire and other districts of this kingdom.10 Pigs of lead of the Romano-British period, inscribed with the names of emperors and of legions, have occasionally been found ”

“ It is, however, the figured pottery of Durobrivæ, which 156 presents some of the characteristics of the Samian ware, that possesses the greatest interest for the antiquary and the historian. The variety of subjects in the Samian ware is far greater, and they are treated in a more elaborate and more highly finished style of art, yet similar classes of subjects appear to have enjoyed greater popularity than others in the Durobrivian and Samian pottery, and we can hardly help suspecting that there was some design of imitating, or perhaps a sentiment of rivalry. ”

“ The mound itself, being constructed of tempered earth, bore some analogy to the grave-hill of the Saxon Thegn, opened at Benty Grange about a year before, and, like it, was without human remains, if we except a few fragments of calcined bone, which are too minute to be certainly assigned either to a human or animal subject. The articles found comprise many small pieces of thin iron straps or bands, more or less overlaid with bronze, which are by no means unlike the framework of the helmet found at Benty Grange. ”

“ Interments by inhumation have also been found at Brough and at other stations in the same county, and, as later deposits, in Celtic barrows. Those where the bones have been found in situ appear, like the one I have spoken of at Little Chester, at Bartlow, and at other places, to have been laid at full length on the back, the arms straight down by the sides. They appear in most instances to have been simply laid in a very shallow grave, but little below the surface of the already formed mound, and to have been then covered to no great thickness with earth. ”

“ As Battely has described it, the greater proportion of this ware is of a ‘blackish colour,’ or rather of a bluish or greyish black, which was produced, no doubt, by the process of the smother-kiln, already described in connection with the Durobrivian pottery. Some of the Upchurch pottery presents a colour approaching to dark drab. Examples of both are given. The forms, as well as the sizes, vary greatly, but they all present those delicate forms of the curve which we recognise at once as coming from the hands of the Roman artist. The texture of the pottery itself is fine, and it is very thin. ”

“ Those which are supposed to be the most ancient, from the fact of their frequently containing flint instruments along with the calcined bones, are of large size, ranging from nine or ten, to sixteen or eighteen inches in height. Those which are considered to belong to a somewhat 86 later period, when cremation had again become general, are of a smaller size, and of a somewhat finer texture. With them objects of flint are rarely found, but articles of bronze are occasionally discovered. The general form of the cinerary urns will be best understood from the annexed engravings. ”

“ In passing along the old high-road, for instance, over Middleton Moor by way of Arbor Low,1 Parcelly Hay, High Needham, Earl Sterndale, and Brier Low, to Buxton, or along the high-roads by way of Winster, Hartington, or Newhaven, the practised eye has no difficulty in resting on the forms of grave-mounds on the summits of the different hills or mountains, whose outlines stand out clear and distinct against the sky. ”

“ Some remarkable examples of tombs and graves containing burials by cremation have been discovered at the Bartlow Hills, at Colchester, at Uriconium, at Rochester, at York, at Chester, and in other places. The grave, or chest, was formed of wood, or tiles, or of stone. In this the urn containing the ashes of the dead was placed, and around it were put smaller vessels which probably contained ointments, balsams, and other offerings ”

“ The earliest grave-mounds are mostly found in the mountainous districts of the land—among the hills and fastnesses; the latter overspreading hill and valley and plain alike. Thus, in Cornwall and Yorkshire, in Derbyshire and in Dorsetshire, in Wiltshire and in many other districts, the earliest interments are, or have been, abundant; while the later ones, besides being mixed up with them in the districts named, are spread over every other county. In the counties just named Celtic remains abound more than those of any other period. ”

“ Indications existed of the shield having been placed in its usual position over the centre of the body, but no umbone was in this instance found. The mounds are usually, as in this instance, very low, frequently not being raised more than a foot above the natural surface of the ground. The earth was, as I have stated, usually “puddled” or tempered with water, and thus the body in the grave became closely imbedded in a compact and tenacious mass.” ”

“ The warrior was usually laid, in his full dress, flat on his back (as already spoken of) ; his spears lying on his right side, his sword and knife on his left, and his shield laid on the centre of his body. The 209 accompanying engraving (fig. 325) of a grave opened by the late Mr. Bateman, on Lapwing Hill, will pretty tolerably illustrate this mode of Anglo-Saxon burial. Beneath the bones of the skeleton were “traces of light-coloured hair, as if from a hide, resting upon a considerable quantity of decayed wood, indicating a plank of some thickness, or the bottom of a coffin. ”

“ The engraving represents the contents of a grave-mound excavated at Selzen, on the Rhine, by Lindenschmidt, in which, along with the skeleton of the warrior, were the skull and other remains of his horse, with portions of horse-shoes, as well as some urns of good character, and of close resemblance to those of our Anglo-Saxon period. Tumuli containing the remains of horses are of unfrequent occurrence in England, and therefore this example becomes interesting as an illustration for comparison. ”