Monument record MWX472 - Inhumation cemetery, Jordan Hill, Preston, Weymouth

A late Iron Age and Roman inhumation cemetery with cists and finds of bead rim jars, pottery and shale objects was found on Jordan Hill.

Col Drew thinks this site was probably 0.25 mile W of where marked. (2) [SY 698 823] In November 1845 Mr Medhurst found a cemetery where he obtained 40-50 urns and Samian pottery. Some are in the Dorset County Museum and some in the BM. The site is 300 yards N of the shaft in the Temple. [SY 6995 8203] The site of the cemetery is about 100 yards on the SE side of the Temple. It appeared to be a parallelogram bounded on each side by a low thick stone wall giving it slightly the appearance of a raised vallum, and extending over an area of 500 ft. At about 2 ft depth a cist was found containing a skeleton with nails and decayed wood - evidently a coffin. The site produced several inhumations, burnt bones and animal bones, urns and altars. In the same field a coin hoard was found in 1812. [SY698 823] This site is about 300 yards from the Temple "on the northern slope of the hill though the intervening space is also part of the same extensive Roman cemetery. There were a few personal ornaments and styli an iron sword, bone spearhead, a fragment of Purbeck marble showing a mould for casting a dagger and the foot of a table or chair of Kimmeridge Shale. The cemetery began to be used about 1 AD - Iron Age C and continued to be used during the Roman occupation. The burials were clearly inhumations and not cremations. Some 80 skeletons were found and only part of the cemetery was excavated. Some of the bead rim pottery is in the Dorset County Museum. [The conflicting evidence of site is based upon the original Medhurst excavation of 1845]. <1> <2> <4> <6> <7> In the Roman cemetery on Jordan Hill was found a slab lying near a skeleton and on it a handled cup of black ware, also a Samian cup around which were five small bowls of blackware with a piece of Kimmeridge Shale, smooth and bearing linear and semi-circular tracings. An elegant bowl of Kimmeridge Shale was found by Medhurst in1845. <3> [SY 69 82] No evidence was obtained during field investigation to confirm any of the citings given in Authorities 2 and 3. The area is under pasture and a crop. There were no surface finds. The area indicated includes the sites given in Authorities 1, 2 and 3. <8> The cemetery perhaps pre-Roman in origin, lay N and NE and extended at least 300 yds, over an area where Roman material occurs on the surface. The most reliable account is probably that of T W Wake Smart in Warne's Ancient Dorset. About 80 inhumation burials of adults and children were found in an area of about one acre, variously orientated and often flexed, and sometimes in groups of up to six individuals. Some were in stone cists and one grave was paved with chalk tesserae; nails indicated that some had been in wooden coffins. Low drystone walls, one of crescent-shape 21 ft long, apparently demarcated burial plots and sometimes had burials in their structure (Shipp (in Hutchins) states that the cemetery was within a parallelogram 500 ft across with a low thick wall). Near the burials were (i) several floors of white clay, one seemingly of 18 ft by 12 ft with stone walls; (ii) clay-lined hollows containing ashes, animal bones and sherds, several apparently provided with stone-lined drains; (iii) two stone cists containing burnt shale and calcined animal bones; (iv) several stone piles on which rested animal bones or vessels containing them. Some burials had single pots or groups; in one group of nine vessels, three (a samian dish, a black ware imitation of samian form 37, and a handled cup of black ware) stood on an engraved oblong plaque or tray of shale placed at the shoulder, with five blackware bowls ranged around it, and a bottle of yellowish ware at the knees. Another imitation of samian form 37 was made of shale. Some 80 vessels survive (mostly in DCM and BM) out of perhaps 125 listed as from Jordan Hill in sale catalogues of the Medhurst Collection samian ware, imitation samian in black fabrics, a Gallo-Belgic terra rubra bowl and terra nigra platters, and two lead glazed beakers. Although sherds of late Romano-British ware were found, most of the whole vessels may be attributed to the cemetery and assigned to the second half of the 1st century AD, with some few of the 2nd century or later. A bronze armlet, finger-rings and sandal nails accompanied burials, also iron arrowheads, an iron sword, styli, and bone weaving-combs. Other objects from the cemetery area, not necessarily with burials and in some cases suggesting domestic or industrial occupation included iron spear-heads, saddle and rotary quern-stones, chert and flint balls, a shale armlet and lathe-turned armlet cores, a Durotrigian silver coin and three of the 3rd and 4th centuries, sherds including painted ware of New Forest type, and many pieces of angular supports resembling salt-boiling 'briquetage'. Less precisely attributed objects from Jordan Hill are four more whole or partial shale plaques or trays with engraved decoration, a carved shale slab, a shale tablet with stylised on in relief from a site yielding bronze coins and sherds, Iron Age swan-necked and ring-headed pins (Arch J xci (1934), 228-9) La Tene I and III and Roman brooches, and a bronze Roman mirror-handle (Archaeologia Cambrensis c (1949), 32). <10> 452622 1. Roman cemetery [65] (site of) 2. Col. Drew thinks this site was probably 1/4 mile West of where marked. 3. [SY 698823] In Nov 1845 MR. MEDHURST found a cemetery where he obtained 40-50 urns and samian pottery. Some are in the DORSET COUNTY MUSEUM and some in the BM. The site is 300 yards North of the shaft in the Temple [Dorset 53 NE 3] (1) [SY 69958203] The site of the cemetery is about 100 yds on the South East side of the temple. It appeared to be a parallelogram bounded on each side by a low thick stone wall giving it slightly the appearance of a raised volume and extending over an area of 500ft. At about 2ft depth a cist was found containing a skeleton with nails and decayed wood - evidently a coffin, the site produced several inhumations, burnt bones and animal bones, urns and "alters". In the same field a coin hoard was found in 1812 [Dorset 53 NE 7] (2) [SY 698823] This site is about 300 yards from the temple "on the Northern slope of the hill though the intervening space is also part of the same extensive Roman Cemetery. There were a few personal ornaments or weapons with the skeletons- 3 bronze fibulae' combs, iron arrowheads, styli, and iron sword, bone spearhead, a fragment of Purbeck marble showing a mould for casting a dagger and the foot of a table or chair of The cemetery began to be used about 1 AD-Iron Age c and continued to be used during the Roman occupations. The burials were clearly inhumations and not cremations. Some 80 skeletons were found and only part of the cemetery was excavated. Some of the bead rim pottery is in the DORSET COUNTY MUSEUM. (4)

Record last edited

Nov 19 2023 7:54AM