Grave-mounds and Their Contents A Manual of Archæology, as Exemplified in the Burials of the Celtic, the Romano-British, and the Anglo-Saxon Periods — Key Ideas to Explore

Pottery as a Diagnostic Tool

The excerpts devote considerable space to Roman pottery, particularly the Upchurch and Durobrivian wares. Jewitt describes the Upchurch pottery as having a “blackish colour” produced by a “smother-kiln,” and notes that its forms “present those delicate forms of the curve which we recognise at once as coming from the hands of the Roman artist.” He distinguishes between local and imported wares, ranking Upchurch ware as “the next after the foreign Samian and the native Durobrivian wares.” This hierarchy is based on texture, ornamentation, and distribution—Upchurch pottery has been found in France and Germany, suggesting export. Jewitt also details the tools used for decoration: “mere sticks, some sharpened to a point, and others with a transverse section cut into notches.” Such observations ground his classification in physical evidence rather than speculation.

Burial Practices and Body Positions

Jewitt’s chapter headings indicate a systematic treatment of interment methods: inhumation versus cremation, and body positions including “contracted,” “sitting,” and “kneeling.” The excerpts do not provide full descriptions, but the table of contents lists “Hitter Hill Barrow” and “Elliptical Barrow at Swinscoe” as examples. The manual appears to treat these as case studies, linking specific barrow types to particular periods. Jewitt also mentions “double interments” and “pit interments” alongside “tree-coffins,” suggesting a range of funerary practices. Without the full text, the reader must infer that Jewitt’s evidence comes from excavated skeletal remains and grave goods, not from historical accounts.

The Role of Illustration in Archaeological Argument

The title page boasts “nearly Five Hundred Illustrations,” and the excerpts reference woodcuts (e.g., “fig. 230” and “fig. 231”). Jewitt uses these images to support his typologies: for Upchurch pottery, he describes a “band of half-circles, made with compasses” and a “curiously shaped plain urn” that are presumably depicted. The illustrations are not merely decorative; they function as evidence for his claims about form and decoration. In the passage on Romano-Salopian potteries, he notes that “two sorts especially are found in considerable abundance; the one white, the other of a rather light red colour,” and likely illustrates these. The reader should consult the original page images (available via Internet Archive) to fully assess Jewitt’s visual arguments.

Jewitt’s manual is best approached as a reference work rather than a narrative. Readers interested in specific artifact types—such as cinerary urns or flint implements—can consult the detailed chapter headings. The excerpts suggest that Jewitt’s strength lies in his meticulous description of material culture, but his period divisions may reflect Victorian assumptions about ethnic succession. Comparing his classifications with modern archaeological reports would be instructive.

I kept thinking about how Jewitt’s manual treats each urn and fibula as a whispered remnant, not a grand story. It made me want something equally patient with silent marks. There’s a strange comfort in that quiet attention, which I found again in The Ancient Phonetic Alphabet of Yucatan — Edition Insights, where glyphs feel less like puzzles and more like old friends waiting to be remembered.