Sheriffton

NO12NW 15 1049 2801

For adjacent cropmarkings and possible cist, see NO12NW 58 and NO12NW 29, respectively.

(NO 1049 2801) Three food-vessels and a cup marked stone were found near the middle of the Roman Camp (NO12NW 8) on Sheriffton farm at the end of 1917, during tree-moving operations.

The urns had been placed upright, in a straight line, in a hole in the ground, with no cist or built structure of any sort. The mouth of each of the food-vessels had been covered with a small flat stone.

One urn, tripartite, with cord-impressed decoration, as well as short vertical scores, is wide mouthed, the upper half nearly vertical and the lower tapering to a narrow base. It measures 5 7/8" in height and 5 1/2" across the mouth. It was apparently whole before being smashed on discovery.

The second urn appears to have been similar in shape to the first, although it is not possible to say if it was tripartite since less than half of it remains. Its decorations, quite different from the first vessel, is of upright zigzags. The external diameter of the mouth seems to have been about 6 1/2".

Of the third urn only about half of the wall remains. It is different in shape to the other urns, in that the profile of the upper two-thirds is curvilinear. The ornament resembles that on the second urn, and the external diameter of the mouth measures about 6 1/2 ins. A small quantity of incinerated bones, was found adhering to some of the fragments.

The second and third urns were broken before discovery. All three urns were reddish on the outside.

Eight feet ESE of the urns was found a roughly oval stone, measuring 5' 11" x 3'6" by 1 foot thick. On the upper surface were four cup-marks, and a chiselled groove.

J G Callander 1918; A Young 1953.