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A HISTORY OF SUSSEX In the year i 800 Lord Gage exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries of London ' two swords and a knife, fragments of a stone bracelet and of a buckle which had been recently found with six human skeletons in a field which had been tilled for two centuries, in the parish of Bed- dingham, about five miles from Lewes. The skeletons lay about a foot below the surface, in different directions. Three males and one female lay east-and-west, with the head westward, and the female between the two others ; while one was north-and-south, with the head to the south, and another with the head to the north. A quantity of beads were also collected, which had probably been hung round the woman's neck. The position of several graves above the chalk pit near Glynde railway station^ was not marked in any way on the surface ; and it was only by the removal of the top-soil or by the fall of the underlying chalk that they were discernible. Bones were often observed on the lower level, but very seldom could they be traced to any grave above. Except for a small pottery vase ' between 3 and 4 inches high found in 1870, nothing but the usual iron knives were found on the site, and the inference is natural that the community was a poor one. The graves, which were about 1 8 inches from the surface, were how- ever all east-and-west, and the absence of grave-furniture may have been due to religious scruples. The only peculiarities noticed were that in some cases one leg was crossed over the other, and in one instance, in a grave 3 ft. deep, the head lay on the right side facing the south. In 1879 Saxon interments were found by the side of the road leading from Glynde to Ringmer, through a spear-head projecting from the face of a cutting.* Eight burials were brought to light, and seven of these lay nearly parallel to each other with the head towards the south-west, the remaining one pointing almost due north. Between two of these graves were found seven urns of the ordinary black pottery imperfectly fired.° They had been placed on the chalk, which had been carefully smoothed to receive them, and were quite plain, containing bones in each case. The articles found with the unburnt burials con- sisted as usual of iron spear-heads and knives, and a shield-boss ; and there were also some rivets, a bronze buckle, and a Roman coin of the kind known as third brass, which was quite illegible through corrosion. Several balls of pyrites were found in the graves, but these do not appear to have been used for making fire. An interesting point was that the position of the large-headed iron nails, used to ornament the edge of the shield, showed that it was circular with a diameter of about 2 1 ft., and was made of wood. On the north-western slope of the high ground east of Lewes a ' Archaeologia, xiv. 273. 2 Sussex Arch. Collns. xxiii. p. 82. 3 Figured full-size, Sussex Arch. Collns. xx. p. 54. " Sussex Arch. Collns. vol. xxxiii. p. 129. 5 These seem to have been Bronze age cinerary urns, but they were possibly Roman. Anglo-Saxon cremations have not been proved south of the Thames. 338