Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 1.djvu/128

110 natural gravel, Roman skeletons have been found, accompanied with urns, coins, and other remains, which leave no doubt of the sepulchral character of the deposits. As late as within the last month several skeletons were discovered in King William-street, at the corner of St. Swithin's-lane, and with them fragments of pottery, and coins, in second brass of Antonia, Claudius, Nero, and Vespasian. As all the coins found under similar circumstances in the centre of the city are invariably of the Higher Empire, these interments we infer were made in early times, and probably soon after the time of the last named emperor, when no buildings stood near, and when the district was resorted to for the burial of the dead, as being remote from the town.

During the excavations made for the foundations of the New Royal Exchange, an ancient gravel-pit was opened. This pit was filled with rubbish, chiefly such as at the present day is thrown on waste places in the precincts of towns; dross from smithies, bones and horns of cows, sheep, and goats; ordure, broken pottery, old sandals, and fragments of leathern harness, oyster shells, and nearly a dozen coins, in second brass, of Vespasian and Domitian. Over the mouth of the pit had been spread a layer of gravel, upon which were the foundations of buildings, and a mass of masonry six feet square, two sides of which still retained portions of fresco-paintings with which they had been ornamented. Remains of buildings covered also the whole site of the present Exchange.

The pit itself is an interesting example of the gradual progress of Londinium. From this locality was gravel obtained for the flooring of buildings and various other purposes of the infant colony; but as the town increased in extent, it was abandoned, filled in, and subsequently, by an artificial stratum of gravel, adapted for buildings. Here coins are again useful as evidence. The only one obtained from this pit, besides those above mentioned, was a plated denarius of Severus, but the agents and servants of the United Gresham and City Improvement Committees, prevented my making those close and uninterrupted observations which otherwise would have enabled me to authenticate the exact position of the last coin. The fact of there not being found any coin of the century between the time of Domitian and that of Severus, would raise a doubt as to whether the specimen of the latter emperor may not have been in the vicinity of, rather than in the pit