3-021-328 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Roman antiquities found at King's Newton, Melbourne, Derbyshire, 1868. Engraving from a photograph. 'Dr. Massey was satisfied that [the sepulchral urns] were remains of cremated burials:..."we found ourselves in the heart of an ancient cemetery; urn after urn to the number of twenty, full of ashes and bones, was disinterred...The majority of the urns outside and inside are of a black colour, the material clay...a few were faced on both sides with a red pigment...A Staffordshire potter is of opinion that the urns have been manufactured on the wheel"...The ingenious antiquary may weary himself with conjectures as to the origin of these remains, whether Celtic, Roman, or Saxon - that they date from a very remote period there can be no reasonable doubt...During the [Roman] empire, cremation was almost universal, and...was adopted in order to prevent the bodies of the legionaries dying on service in foreign lands from being outraged by the enemy...Under the influences of Christianity, the practice of burning the dead became abhorrent to the Saxon mind, and was discontinued in the early part of the fifth century.' From "Illustrated London News", 1868.