Various Greek authors attest the practice of orienting graves before the time of Solon (died _c._ B.C. 558)[615]. Setting this evidence aside, and restricting the inquiry chiefly to our own country, we have good reason to believe that there has been continuity of custom from the Saxon period at least. Mr Romilly Allen asserts that the East-to-West position was usual in the early days of Christianity. Further it was formerly suggested by Mr Reginald A. Smith that, wherever East-to-West graves are met with in Saxon cemeteries, they indicate the burial-places of Christians, in contrast to the tombs of the heathen. But the discoveries at Mitcham, in Surrey, of a large number of skeletons carefully orientated, break the rule, since Mr Smith himself shows that the burials were of pre-Saxon date, while the associated relics point to pagan interment. Again, a cemetery which was discovered at the Roman “level” in Bishopsgate Street, London, contained bodies laid East and West. Since no pagan objects were associated with the skeletons, we may perhaps conjecture that the burials were those of Christians[616]. But the most common position of skeletons in Roman cemeteries, according to Wright, is found to be East and West; usually, though by no means always, the feet are towards the East[617]. This generalization must now be considered too confident. There is the further complication that some of the cemeteries contain burnt, as well as unburnt bodies, suggesting a mingling of pagan and Christian burials.