SDO9823 - Antiquities

Within the last week some workmen engaged in lowering the top of the hill in Fordington, adjoining this town, have brought to light some curious remains of antiquity. All about the locality in question, numerous human skeletons have at various times been found, leading to divers conjectures and hypotheses. Many such were now discovered, lying in various positions; but the most interesting portion of the proceedings was the exhumation of a skeleton that had evidently been interred beneath a barrow. Round the neck of the skeleton, which was that of a female, was a necklace of beads of glass and amber, connected by very fine brass links; and to which was appended an amulet, about an inch and a half in diameter, and nearly spherical, beautifully turned out of the Kimmeridge coal, and on the right arm was an armlet of the same material, elegantly turned, ornamented, and highly polished. The body had been interred with the head to the north, and near the head was an urn of rude black ware, slightly ornamented on the exterior, and about seven inches high, and about the same in diameter at the mouth, with another smaller urn or drinking cup, of somewhat ruder shape and manufacture, and the remains of a lachrymatory of the red Samian ware, of elegant form and proportion. The interment is clearly that of a Romanised Briton.