the Augustan, lived a hundred years.

Julia

Secundina, his wife, and Julius Martinus, his son,

caused this to be made."

To the gods of the shades and to memory. To

At Cirencester is the one here engraved (Fig.

"Rufus Sita, a horseman of the Sixth Cohort of Thracians, aged forty years. Served twenty-two years. His heirs, in accordance with his will, have caused this monument to be erected. He is laid here."

At Hunnum is a stone, marking the burial-place

Gloucestershire, Sussex, Warwickshire, Kent, etc. Inscribed pigs of lead have not unfrequently been been brought to light.

A round pig of copper, bearing the inscription SOCIO ROMÆ, is preserved at Mostyn, and blocks of Roman tin have also occasionally been found.

Remains of workshops and traces of trades and occupations have been met with, but are not of

common occurrence.

CHAPTER VI.

AMONG ANCIENT POTTERY.

THE pottery of the earliest period of English history-the Celtic-is of coarse material and rude character, but some of the forms, although simple, are elegant. The pottery of this period, for which we are entirely indebted to the burial mounds, may be divided into the following classes, viz.— 1. Sepulchral or Cinerary Urns, which have been made for and have contained, or been inverted over, calcined human bones; 2. Drinking Cups, which are supposed to have contained some liquid to be placed with the dead body; 3. Food Vessels (so called), which are supposed to have contained an offering of food, and are more usually found with unburnt bodies than along with interments by cremation; 4. Immolation Urns (erroneously, for want of more knowledge of their use, named Incense Cups by Sir R. Colt Hoare), which are very small vessels, found only with burnt bones (and usually also containing them), placed in the mouths of, or

close by, the large cinerary urns. These latter I believe to have been simply small urns intended to receive the ashes of the infant, perhaps sacrificed at the death of its mother, so as to admit of being placed within the larger urn containing the ashes of the parent: I have therefore ventured to name them "Immolation Urns."

The pottery exhibits considerable variety, both in clay, in size, and in ornamentation. Those vessels presumed to be the oldest are of coarse clay mixed with small pebbles and sand; the later ones of a somewhat less clumsy form, and perhaps a finer mixture of clays. They are entirely wrought by hand without the assistance of the wheel, and are mostly very thick and clumsy. They are very imperfectly fired, having probably been baked on the funeral pyre. From this imperfect firing, the vessels of this period are usually called "sunbaked" or "sun-dried;" but this is a grave error. If they were "sun-baked" only, their burial in the earth-in the tumuli wherein, some two thousand years ago, they were deposited, and where they have all that time remained-would soon soften them, and they would, ages ago, have returned to their old clayey consistency. As it is, the urns remain of their original form; and although, from imperfect baking, they are sometimes found partially softened, they soon regain their original hardness. They bear abundant evidence of the action of fire, and are, indeed, sometimes sufficiently burned for

the clay to have attained a red colour-a result which no "sun-baking" could produce. They are mostly of an earthy brown colour outside, and almost black in fracture, and many of the cinerary urns bear internal and unmistakable evidence of having been filled with the burnt bones and ashes of the deceased, while those ashes were of a glowing and

intense heat; they were, most probably, fashioned by the females of the tribe, on the death of their relative, from the clay to be found nearest to the spot, and baked on or by the funeral pyre, and then filled with the burning ashes of the dead.

The Cinerary or Sepulchral Urns vary very

G