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A N G L O - S A X O N SKULL.
PEOM CEMETERY AT WEST HARNHAM, SOUTH WILTS.
(KINGDOM OP WEST-SAXONS, SIXTH TO TENTH CENTUUT A.D.)
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Cranium from Cemetery at Bamham—Quarter-size.
AN extensive Anglo-Saxon cemetery, at West Harnham, about a mile from Salisbury, was
discovered in the summer of 1853, in a field caUed the Low Eield, perhaps from the hldwes or
mounds with which it may once have been covered. Harnham was probably an early Anglo-
Saxon site, equidistant from Wiltun and Searobyrig (Old Sarum), or about three mües from each.
This cemetery was carefully examined by Mr. J. T. Akerman, Secretary to the Society of Antiquaries,
by whom a full accoimt of the results has been drawn up and pubhshed*. Here, within
a space about one hundred and forty feet in length, and twenty in breadth, were about sixty
graves, containing as many skeletons, at no great depth, on the' natural chalk bed. In an
ecclesiastical cemetery of the present times, a piece of ground of the same dimensions will be
found to contain about eighty graves. This will suffice to show that any hillocks over the
interments in the Harnham cemetery, must rather have resembled the grave mounds of the present
day, than barrows properly so-calledt. With few exceptions, and some of these appeared
accidental, the skeletons lay in an extended position with the feet to the east, as in a modern
Christian cemetery. In one instance only, was the skeleton found with the head to the south
and the feet to the north, the usual position in Anglo-Saxon interments, of an indubitable
* Archa3ologia, 1S54, vol. xxxv. pp. 259, 475.
f Douglas ("Nenia Britannica," 1793, plates 23, 24,
p. 94, 99) gives plans and dimensions of the areas occupied by
two groups of Anglo-Saxon tumuli in Kent. In the case of
that on Chartham Down, he says, " In a space of 400 feet by
9.
150, or thereabouts, I counted thirty and in another forty barrows."
It thus appears that the Anglo-Saxon graves of the
cemetery at Harnham, do not cover so much as a thirtieth part
of the space occupied by the barrows on Chartham Down.
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