Volume 1

The gentleman's magazine library : being a classified collection of the chief contents of The gentleman's magazine from 1731 to 1868. Romano-British remains / edited by George Laurence Gomme.

Date:
1887
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The gentleman's magazine library : being a classified collection of the chief contents of The gentleman's magazine from 1731 to 1868. Romano-British remains / edited by George Laurence Gomme. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    mixed among the earth. It is worthy of remark that these remains were found near a Roman causeway, and it is evident the soil is arti- ficial, being very different from that a few yards distant; this made soil is within an area of about 150 yards. As this land was enclosed about sixty years ago, the line of the road from Weymouth to the village of Radipole passing over it, unquestionably caused the removal of a portion of the soil, when the skeletons, etc., might have been disturbed to a certain extent, as the broken pottery and irregular posi- tion of some of the skeletons plainly indicates such an occurrence, no caution being used in examining or taking care of such remains by the parties engaged in the work at that time. The knife found with the female skeleton was given to W. Eliot, Esq., the proprietor of the land where the remains were met with ; the other articles preserved are in the possession of Mr. Medhurst, who is indefatigable in his pursuit and search for Roman remains in this neighbourhood, and by whose discrimination and perseverance the late interesting relics have been brought into public notice. The finding of skeletons in this locality is by no means unusual; several have been lately met with on Buckland Ripers Farm, in ploughing the ground, and also on Tatton Farm, in the same parish ; several have been found in stone coffins, but, as no search has been particularly made for coins, they have been seldom discovered. A denarius of Constantine was a little while ago taken up with the soil at the Back Water, Weymouth, in indifferent preservation. Spettisbury. [1857, Part II, p. 662.] The navvies employed on the first section of the Dorset Central Railway, extending from Wimborne to Blandford, on making a deep cutting in Castle Hill, on one side of the road leading through the village of Spettisbury, disinterred a large quantity of human bones, among which were as many as seventy skulls. The whole of the bones were detached, and when found presented a crushed and broken appearance. In one of the skulls was discovered a spear-head firmly fixed, the shaft having been evidently broken off before the body was interred ; various weapons of war, such as swords, daggers, spear- heads, with ornamental buckles and other fastening for the dress, and a brass boiler-shaped vessel, evidently used for culinary purposes, ex- hibiting superior workmanship, were found with the human remains. The probability is that the disturbed burial-place was a large grave, in which the bodies of the slain were hurriedly and promiscuously depo- sited, with the fragments of the weapons of war they had used in the fight. No doubt can be entertained but that the spot where the remains were discovered formed part, sixteen or seventeen hundred years since, of a Roman encampment, surrounded by earthen outworks, and was probably occupied at the time the Romans advanced from the western
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