Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 1.djvu/397



Mr. T. Crofton Croker read an account of further excavations of barrows on Breach Downs, made subsequent to the Canterbury meeting.

"On the 16th of September, 1844, Lord Albert Conyngham resumed his examination of the barrows on Breach Downs, and opened eight more in the presence of the Dean of Hereford and Mr. Crofton Croker.

In No. 1. The thigh bones and scull were found much decayed; close by the right hip was a bronze buckle, which probably had fastened a leather belt round the waist, in which had been placed an iron knife, the remains of one being dis- covered near the left hip of the skeleton.

No. 2. The only thing found in this grave was a very small fragment of a dark-coloured sepulchral urn, with a few small bones, and the jaw of a young person in the process of dentition.

No. 3. The bones in this grave were much decayed. Several fragments of iron were found near the head, and on the right side of it a bronze buckle, very similar to that found in No. I. but rather smaller. By the left side of the scull an iron spear-head was discovered, about ten inches in length.

No. 4. In this grave the bones were remarkably sound, and were those of a very tall man; the thigh bone measured twenty inches. An ornamental bronze buckle was found on the right hip, attached to a leather belt, which crumbled to pieces upon exposure to the air, and the right arm was placed across the body. To the buckle was attached a thin longitudinal plate of bronze, which had two cross-shaped indentations or perforations in it, and the face of the plate was covered over with engraved annulets.

No. 5. Presented a skeleton, in the scull of which the teeth were quite sound and perfect. At the feet some iron fragments were found, supposed to be parts of a small box, and this, on subsequent examination, has proved to be the case, as a hinge of two longitudinal pieces of iron connected by a bronze ring has been developed. At the right side was part of an iron spear or arrow-head.

No. 6. In this grave the bones were so much decayed that they could only be traced by fragments mixed up with the chalk rubble, and the only article found was the remains of an iron spear-head.

No. 7. Although it was conjectured from the confused state in which several beads and other articles were found in this grave that it had before been opened, it was the most interesting of the eight. At the foot several broken pieces of a slight sepulchral urn of unbaked or very slightly baked clay, some of them marked with patterns, were discovered; and also fragments of iron presumed to have been