252 NOTICE OF AN ANGLO-ROMAN SARCOPHAGUS

asunder to discover the contents, and placed upon a base, similar in general form to the covering ; the ends of this base are raised or recurved upwards. The material of which the sarcophagus is composed is a rough gritty calcareous stone. The following are its dimensions : — Cover. Length, 5 ft. 3 in.; breadth, 3 ft.; thickness, llin. ; diameter of hole in cen- tre, 2 ft.; depth of ditto, Gin. C/iesf. Diameter, 2 ft. 10 in.; height, 2 ft. ; internal ditto, 1 ft. 6 in. Consequently the bottom is six inches thick, but the middle is very much thin- ner, and in the centre of the bottom there is a hole. Base. Length, 5 ft. 3 in. ; breadth, 3 ft. ; thickness, 1 ft. ; thickness of central part, 10|in. ; breadth of side, raised part, 1ft. 10 in. This form of chest, area or loculus, is rather uncommon, although well adapted for single interments ; when the re- mains of two or more members of a family were placed in the same tomb, it was generally made of a rectangular shape, with a long elliptical trough, the ends of which well fitted the vases containing the ashes of the deceased : in these sarcophagi the vases were usually formed of glass. Such is the shape of the coffins discovered by the Rev. P. Rashleigh at Southfleet, in Kent, in 1821, and of that published by M. Caumont'^. In the British Museum are cylindrical vases of lead, with circular covers, and enclosing bones, and small vases, found in excavations made in the island of Delos. These are evi- dently of the Roman period. Such forms were familiar to the Roman writers. Arrian ^ mentions the TrueXo?, or bin, in which the body of Cyrus was deposited, which Curtius trans- lates by dolium, or cask« ; and Phlegon of Tralles, the freedman of Hadrian, gives an account of the discovery of the head of the hero Idas, in a tt/^o?, or cask of stoned A leaden vase, apparently Roman, with a short cylindrical neck and cover, and body of cylindrical shape, found in Fenchurch-street in 1833, is in the collection of the British Museum. In the excavations undertaken by Mr. Rashleigh in the Sole field at Southfleet, he discovered two stone coffins, one formed of separate pieces clamped together, the other of a' single ^ See note g. and uncritically given by Gough, Sep. •^ Cours d'ArchseoL, torn. ii. c. viii. p. Mon. hitvod. xxv. xxvi. ; and Carter in 257. Pi. x.Kix. Nos. 14, 15. Archseol., vol. xii. p. 108—111.

• • Exp. Alex. vii. 29. ' Opuscula, 8vo. Halse, 1775. c. xi. p. 82.
• X. c. 32 : not solmw, as erroneously