London (England) -- Description and travel; London (England) -- History -- 16th century -- Sources; London (England) -- Surveys
On the east side of this churchyard lieth a large field, of old time
called Lolesworth, now Spittle field; which about the year 1576 was
broken up for clay to make brick; in the digging whereof many earthen
pots, called _urnæ_, were found full of ashes, and burnt bones of men,
to wit, of the Romans that inhabited here; for it was the custom of the
Romans to burn their dead, to put their ashes in an urn, and then bury
the same, with certain ceremonies, in some field appointed for that
purpose near unto their city. Every of these pots had in them with the
ashes of the dead one piece of copper money, with the inscription of the
emperor then reigning: some of them were of Claudius, some of Vespasian,
some of Nero, of Anthoninus Pius, of Trajanus, and others. Besides those
urns, many other pots were there found, made of a white earth with
long necks and handles, like to our stone jugs: these were empty, but
seemed to be buried full of some liquid matter long since consumed and
soked through; for there were found divers phials and other fashioned
glasses, some most cunningly wrought, such as I have not seen the like,
and some of crystal; all which had water in them, nothing differing in
clearness, taste, or savour from common spring water, whatsoever it was
at the first: some of these glasses had oil in them very thick, and
earthy in savour; some were supposed to have balm in them, but had lost
the virtue; many of those pots and glasses were broken in cutting of
the clay, so that few were taken up whole. There were also found divers
dishes and cups of a fine red-coloured earth, which showed outwardly
such a shining smoothness as if they had been of coral; those had in the
bottoms Roman letters printed: there were also lamps of white earth and
red, artificially wrought with divers antiques about them, some three
or four images made of white earth, about a span long each of them: one
I remember was of Pallas, the rest I have forgotten. I myself have
reserved, among divers of those antiquities there, one urn, with the
ashes and bones, and one pot of white earth very small, not exceeding
the quantity of a quarter of a wine pint, made in shape of a hare
squatted upon her legs, and between her ears is the mouth of the pot.
There hath also been found in the same field divers coffins of stone,
containing the bones of men: these I suppose to be the burials of some
especial persons in time of the Britons or Saxons, after that the Romans
had left to govern here. Moreover, there were also found the skulls and
bones of men without coffins, or rather whose coffins (being of great
timber) were consumed. Divers great nails of iron were there found,
such as are used in the wheels of shod carts, being each of them as big
as a man’s finger, and a quarter of a yard long, the heads two inches
over; those nails were more wondered at than the rest of things there
found, and many opinions of men were there uttered of them; namely,
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