Of the monumental inscriptions left by the Romans, two of the most interesting were found near the Roman station in South Shields. One of them is an elaborately carved slab, four feet long, which bears the figure of a woman seated, with a work-basket at her left hand and a jewel-case at her right; she seems to be occupied in needlework. Below is the Latin inscription: "To the Divine Shades of Regina, of the Catuallaunian Tribe, a freed woman, and the wife of Barates the Palmyrene. She lived thirty years." Below this is a line in Syriac: "Regina, the freed woman of Barate. Alas!" The district of Catuallauna is said to have extended from Gloucestershire to Lincolnshire. It is strange that affinity of souls should have brought together as man and wife a merchant from Syria and a slave from the centre of England. Another Roman gravestone from South Shields, found in 1885, reads: "To the Divine Shades of Victor. He was by nation a Moor: he lived twenty years: and was the freed man of Numerianus, a horseman of the first ala of Asturians, who most affectionately followed [his former servant to the grave]." This stone probably dates from about A.D. 275; it bears the half-recumbent figure of a man on a couch, with a canopy above and the inscription below. At Binchester, near Bishop Auckland--the Vinovia of the Romans--a plain slab with ansated ends was found inscribed: "Sacred to the Divine Shades. Nemesius Montanus the Decurion lived forty years. Nemesius Sanctus, his brother, and his coheirs, erected this in accordance with the provisions of his will." This slab was also probably carved and set up in the third century. In Roman epitaphs no mention of death is ever made; it is stated that the person commemorated had lived so many years, but the fact that he died and the date of his death is not recorded. Of Anglo-Saxon memorial crosses there are a large number in the county of Durham, all of them of great interest, and some of beautiful workmanship. The most notable are those at Aycliffe, Billingham, Chester-le-Street, Coniscliffe, Darlington, Dinsdale, Durham (where, in the Dean and Chapter Library, there is a fine collection both of original stones from several places and of facsimile copies), Elwick, Escomb, Gainford, Great Stainton, Haughton-le-Skerne, Hurworth, Kelloe, Norton, Sockburn, and Winston-on-the-Tees. None of them are perfect; most of them are fragments of monuments which have at some time been broken up and used as building stones. [Illustration: ANGLO-SAXON STONE AT CHESTER-LE-STREET.]