Page:VCH Norfolk 1.djvu/366

 A HISTORY OF NORFOLK fashion to wear such rings at one period. Whether the Poringland ring referred to Constantius Chlorus, or his son Constantine the Great, or some other member of the dynasty is not clear. In any case it belongs to the first half of the fourth century.' Lastly, a word is due to a very puzzling and curious object which may or may not have been found at North Elmham. It is an urn, to all appearances a purely English urn, formerly in the collection of the Rev. Bryan Faussett and now in the Liverpool Museum (fig. 27). Though an English urn, it bears outside it a Roman inscription in rude and not altogether Roman letters, as follows : DM L-AELIAE R VFI N AE vixiT. A. xm M. W. D-in that is — D{is) Mianibus) Lcelice Rufince : vixit a{nnos) xiii, m{enses) in, d{ies) vi. ' To the memory of Lxlia Rufina, who lived 1 3 years, 3 months, and 6 days.' Its origin is uncertain, but as the urn accords well in character with those found in Norfolk and particularly at North Elmham, and as Faussett records receiving two urns from Elmham, Mr. C. R. Smith conjectures that this urn came from that place. At the same time, as he admits, it is strange that Faussett, in his record, said nothing about the inscription, which is quite plain and conspicuous. Now Roman remains have been found at North Elmham, for which I may refer to the Index at the end of this article — a hoard of coins and, as is alleged, some burial urns. But we may fairly look on the inscribed urn with suspicion. For in the first place, its origin is obscure. In the second place, its ceramif character is unquestionably post-Roman. And thirdly, the inscription itself is of a somewhat unexpected kind. Such an inscription, mentioning nothing but the dead person's name and the exact years, months and days of his or her life, is common enough in Rome : it belongs to a type represented by thousands of instances in the columbaria and cemeteries of the great city. But the type spread little. It is almost unknown in Britain, and we certainly should not expect to find it on a burial urn or in a remote part of the British province. Add to this the fact that the lettering is by no means above suspicion, and it becomes impossible to avoid the fear that the inscription may have been added to the urn by a modern hand ; it may indeed be a copy of a genuine inscription actually found in Rome. In any case, it must not count among the Roman remains of Norfolk,* ' The ring is described Archttolo^a, xxi. 547 (with illustration), xxiii. 366 ; Corpus Inscriptitmum Latinarum, vii. 1,301. For the whole class of rings see Mowit, Memoires de la Societe des Antiquaires de la France, x. (1889) 336, and my notes in the Archaological Journal, 50, 282. vii. 94 ; Wright, Intellectual Observer, vi. 121. Smith held the urns to be the work of the earliest Teutonic tribes to arrive in Britain — before (apparently) the end of the Roman dominion. HUbner suggests that the urns are not really English urns at all. Neither suggestion seems in the least likely. No one, so far as I know, has called attention to the peculiar character of the inscription : epigraphists who know Romano-British inscriptions will however recognize that it is a serious question. 312
 * See C. Roach Smith, Collectanea Antiqua, v. 11 6-1 21; Hubner, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum,