SDO9824 - Fordington Antiquities

The improvement of the road through Fordington by lowering the hill, has been just completed, and the advantage of travelling is very manifest. This alteration has been chiefly effected by a subscription set on foot by the Rev. H Moule, with the view of providing work for the otherwise unemployed labourers of the parish and the purpose has been admirably answered throughout the winter. During the progress of their labours the workmen continually brought to light various interesting relics of antiquity, similar to those which we mentioned at the commencement of the work. The remains of upwards of fifty human bodies have been exhumed, which had been interred entire and deposited in rude coffins, iron nails of various lengths, from 2 to 5 inches, being found at the sides or at the head and feet, with clear indications of having been used to fasten planks. There were also many fragments of manufactured iron, the blade of a knife, iron studs, &c. Amongst the other articles found were a number of colourless glass hair pins, of an elegant shape, - two necklaces of beads, composed of glass, amber, bone, pearl, clay, &c., with a heart shaped amber amulet, and some minute bone rings; - several sepulchral vessels, chiefly of hard black ware, with numerous fragments of pottery of various sorts of brown, red, and black ware, some indicating an advanced state of art, one glazed, other covered with a shining black pigment, one of a light buff-coloured clay, tinted with dark brown on the outside, with an ornamented scroll of white paint;- a peculiar bronze buckle on the breast of one of the bodies;- several very remarkable amulets or large beads turned out of the Kimmeridge coal;- and three armlets neatly turned and highly finished, of the same material. Two coins only were turned up, one of ?[Gratian], of the common third brass, lying near one of the interments, another, also of the third brass, placed on the mouths of one of the bodies, but; so corroded as to be quite illegible. The bodies lay at depths varying from a few inches to six feet below the surface. No excavations were made to a greater depth. It is beyond question, that these exhumations, together with those of 1747 and ?[1610], recorded in Hutchins, have been made on the site of the burial place of the Romo-British city of Durnovaria, now Dorchester, founded after the conquest of the Durotriges by Vespasian, and the abandonment of their ancient ?[metropolis] Dunium (Maiden Castle).