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An Anglo-Saxon Cremation-burial of the Seventh Century in Asthall Barrow, Oxfordshire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2012

E. Thurlow Leeds
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Extract

Four and a half miles west of Witney on the south side of the high road from that town to Burford, and immediately opposite the point at which the by-road to the villages of Asthall and Swinbrook descends steeply into the valley of the Windrush from the high ridge along which the main road passes, stands Asthall Barrow (fig. 1), one of the most prominent landmarks in the whole county. It commands an unrivalled view of the Thames valley from Lechlade to Wytham Hill. Northwards across the Windrush valley Leafield Barrow stands out on the sky-line; southwards appear Faringdon Hill and beyond it the Berkshire Downs at White Horse Hill, while to the south-east across the high ridge on the right bank of the Thames at Tubney, Sinodun Hill near Dorchester comes into view with the Chilterns in the distant background.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , April 1924 , pp. 113 - 126
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1924

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References

page 114 note 1 Mr. Bowles has also kindly supplied the photographs shown in figs. 1 and 3.

page 101 note 2 Permission to excavate was sought by a friend for Professor Rolleston in 1872, but was not obtained.

page 118 note 1 Brown, G. Baldwin, The Arts in Early England, iv, 413Google Scholar.

page 119 note 1 In confirmation of Mr. Howel Williams's suggestion (see discussion, p. 125) Prof. E. S. Goodrich has identified these rods as branchiostegal rays of a large Telesotean fish, not certainly Lophius. They show, however, unmistakable signs of having been shaved down by human agency.

page 121 note 1 Mr. Reginald Smith has drawn my attention to a buckle, of later date from Norway, of somewhat similar form (Rygh, , Norske Oldsager, fig. 689Google Scholar).

page 121 note 2 Three small fragments of decorated bronze, one cast, the other embossed, were included in the mass of fused metal. Two have typical plaitwork designs, the third is zoomorphic.

page 122 note 1 The restorations are indicated by plain lines.

page 123 note 1 See also Museum, BritishGuide to Anglo-Saxon Antiquities, pl. v and fig. 72 from TaplowGoogle Scholar.

page 123 note 2 Ibid., fig. 104.

page 123 note 3 Salin, B., Die altgermanischc Thierornamentik, fig. 706Google Scholar; Museum, BritishGuide, pl. i, fig. 3Google Scholar.

page 125 note 1 Dr. Cyril Fox in his recently published Archaeology of the Cambridge Region, I. 279, states that ‘it is on historical grounds improbable that cremation survived into the seventh century in Eastern England’, and in the course of his arguments he questions the validity of some archaeological evidence cited by me (Archaeology of the Anglo-Saxon Settlements, p. 74) for such survival. The material to which he takes exception conies from Girton, and, if invalid, only affects the problem so far as Eastern England is concerned. Dr. Fox makes no comment on the evidence from Marton, Warwickshire, since it is outside the Cambridge region. But that evidence still stands as an argument for the survival of cremation into the seventh century, and the new material from Asthall has justified my contention to the hilt.