XXV. Account of some Antiquities found in the parish of Blandford St. Mary, in Dorsetshire, by the Rev. Thomas Rackett, F.R.S. and F.S.A., in a Letter to Sir Henry Ellis, K.H., F.R.S., Secretary

Abstract

As some labourers were lately digging for the purpose of laying the foundation of a cottage, in a meadow a quarter of a mile from Blandford-bridge, in the parish of Blandford St. Mary, in Dorsetshire, on the estate of Sir John Wyldbore Smith, Bart, of the Down House in the same parish, they discovered six skeletons lying side by side, the heads toward the south-east, about two feet from the surface; a single skeleton, very perfect, was found at a little distance, and also a considerable quantity of detached human bones, the whole intermixed with pieces of decayed wood and black mould. Some of the persons employed being known to me, I desired them to examine the soil very carefully, and I have in consequence obtained the articles which accompany this letter, viz. Roman Coins of Trajan, Maximian, Licinius, and Constantine, and a Greek Coin, a bronze figure of our Saviour, and a glass vessel, two inches in length, evidently formed in a mould and impressed with two grotesque heads. The foot of this vessel (which is narrower towards the bottom) is broken off; but not recently, as the vessel appears to have filled with dirt. It may possibly have originally contained a liquid, as the mouth is hermetically sealed by another piece of glass, which is also broken near the aperture, so that its form cannot be known.