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X.—The Excavation of a Tumulus at Lexden, Colchester

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 November 2011

Philip G. Laver
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Extract

Just within the boundaries of the modern Lexden Park, through which runs the innermost of the ancient defensive earthworks of Camulodunum, known in part of its course by the name of Blue Bell Grove, and formerly Hollow Way, lies the tumulus, the excavation of which in July and August 1924 is the subject of this paper. It lay within the great west field of the town, which apparently was not made several till late in the seventeenth century. In 1758 it lay in Mr. B. Evans's paddock. In 1838 the field in which it then lay was called Round Field Hill, which was absorbed into the Park in 1860.

Type
Research Article
Information
Archaeologia , Volume 76 , 1927 , pp. 241 - 254
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1927

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References

page 241 note 1 Formed after 1750.

page 241 note 2 Which apparently was here bounded on the west by the Hollow Way.

page 241 note 3 Stukeley's plan, Gough Collection, Bodleian.

page 241 note 4 Tithe Map, Lexden, 1838.

page 241 note 5 Gough Collection, Bodleian.

page 241 note 6 Dated 25th August 1758. Wire MSS., Colchester Museum. In this MS. Morant acknowledges help derived from a Dr. Mason.

page 241 note 7 Arch., xxxix, 243.

page 241 note 8 Vol. iii, p. xxvii, and p. 74.

page 241 note 9 Against it appears ‘Roman amphora and pottery found 1860’. The Director-General Ordnance survey sends the following description: ‘A slightly raised mound of circular form covered with fir and other trees. In 1860 Roman remains were found in this tumulus consisting of an amphora, the neck and handle being broken, 2 ft. 9 in. high together with a quantity of fragments of Roman pottery.

The excavation undertaken in 1924 showed that a superficial hole 20 ft. across and 4 ft. deep had been made in the top of the mound and filled with black soil in which a tree had been planted. It is possible that the amphora then discovered (now in the Colchester Museum) was associated with a secondary burial in the surface of the mound, since it is of markedly later type than any of the pottery found during the excavation here described.

page 244 note 1 Cf. Fox, Arch, of the Cambridge Region, p. 195: Barrow, Cremation burial, Roman period, lined with puddled clay at Hildersham, Cambs.

page 244 note 2 Smith, C. R., Collect. Antiqua, iii, 25.Google Scholar

page 244 note 3 Smith, R. A., Archaeol., lxiii, 1.Google Scholar

page 244 note 4 Fox, , op. cit., p. 100, &c.Google Scholar

page 246 note 1 Swarling Report, pl. ix, 22.Google Scholar

page 246 note 2 Col. Mus. Report, 1911, 22–6Google Scholar, Dunmow; 1915, 3214, Maldon (Fitch Collection); 1923, 4420, Braintree.

page 246 note 3 Swarling Report, pl. ix, 34.Google Scholar

page 246 note 4 Arch., lx, p. 279Google Scholar, King's Barrow, Arras.

page 248 note 1 Dr. J. Newton Friend, of the Birmingham Technical School, writes: ‘The link of mail you kindly sent … weighed 0.038 grm. and its mean diameter was 0.6 cm. The join appears to be made by folding over.’

page 248 note 2 For hinges and chain-mail cf. Der Römische Limes in Österreich, ii, 1901, pls. xix, xx (Carnuntum).

page 248 note 3 Brit. Mus., Early Iron Age Guide, 1925, p. 142.

page 248 note 4 Mau, , Pompeii, Kelsey trans., p. 368, fig. 194.Google Scholar

page 249 note 1 Déchelette, , Manuel, ii, 526.Google Scholar

page 249 note 2 Fox, , op. cit., p. 57.Google Scholar

page 250 note 1 Arch., lx, p. 284, fig. 27.

page 251 note 1 Vouga, , La Tene, 1923, p. 56.Google Scholar

page 253 note 1 Another instance is given in V. C. H. Beds., i, 160.