In a field of Old Walsingham, not many months past,
were digged up between forty and fifty urns, deposited
in a dry and sandy soil, not a yard deep, nor far from
one another.--Not all strictly of one figure, but most
answering these described; some containing two pounds
of bones, and teeth, with fresh impressions of their com-
bustion; besides the extraneous substances, like pieces
of small boxes, or combs handsomely wrought, handles
of small brass instruments, brazen nippers, and in one
some kind of opal.
Near the same plot of ground, for about six yards
compass, were digged up coals and incinerated sub-
stances, which begat conjecture that this was the
ustrinaor place of burning their bodies, or some sacrificing
place unto the
Manes, which was properly below the
surface of the ground, as the
arae and altars unto the
gods and heroes above it.
That these were the urns of Romans from the common
custom and place where they were found, is no obscure
conjecture, not far from a Roman garrison, and but five
miles from Brancaster, set down by ancient record under
the name of Branodunum.
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