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Summary - not yet available

Monument Type(s):

• MIXED CEMETERY (Late Iron Age to 5th century Roman - 100 BC to 409 AD)

Associated Finds:

• SHERD (Late Iron Age to 5th century Roman - 100 BC to 409 AD)
• LAMP (1st century AD - 1 AD to 100 AD)
• BROOCH (Roman - 43 AD to 409 AD)
• BROOCH (Roman - 43 AD to 409 AD)
• Painted object (Roman - 43 AD to 409 AD)
• PENDANT (Roman - 43 AD to 409 AD)
• PHALLIC OBJECT (Roman - 43 AD to 409 AD)

Associated Events:

• Excavations at Guilden Morden, 1935
• Excavations at Guilden Morden, 1924

Full description

O1, A large Iron Age and Roman burial ground was discovered in the chalk pit at Guilden Morden, overlooking Ashwell Street and encircled by the 200ft contour. Pottery has been found here since c1864. In 1924 and 1935 - 1939 excavations were carried out, uncovering a cemetery with mixed cremations and inhumations ... C1(c 1AD - 50AD) to the C4. The remains were buried in no order and earlier burial sites were reused.
R10, In October 1879, there was found on the site of a Roman cemetery at Guilden Morden, with a quantity of plain pottery, a terra cotta vase, ornamented with wreaths of laurel enclosing the inscription: VTERE FELIX, painted around in white letters 7/8in high. The cup or vase itself is 3 & 3/4in high and 3 1/2 in in diameter. Now in the CAEM.
R14, Roman bronze brooch, C1 - C2, a "bow and fantail" type, the fan decorated in green enamel with a volute motif and red enamel, from the inhumation burial. An iron brooch also found. Roman clay relief lamp found in the cemetery. This type may have been introduced under Augustus, and is characteristic of the Claudian period. It disappears in the following period. The style of the relief also belongs to the beginning or middle of the C1 AD, a date which we may consider as most probable in view of its composition and its careful and refined work. Technique, material, and glaze are the same as those of Egyptian clay lamps of the same period. It is the first lamp with this remarkable representation of which we know the provenance, and it is interesting in connection with the economic history of the C1 AD. A flat crescent shaped bronze pendant with a phallic ornament was found in the cemetery in 1923.

17. Samian pottery was also found in the 1924 excavation all finds are now in Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. The excavation area had been disturbed by a chalk-pit. Disarticulated and decapitated skeletons were found as well as a ditch full of skeletons. A skeleton of a young child with a coin, of the Vespasian period, in its mouth was also found by Lethbridge and Fox.

1903, OS 6 inch map (Map). SCB8987.

Lewis, SS, Inscribed vase, found at Guilden Morden. PCAS 4: 337 (Article in serial). SCB6986.

Fox, C. and Lethbridge, T.C, 1926, The La Tene and Romano-British Cemetery, Guilden Morden, Cambridgeshire. PCAS 27: 49-63 (Article in serial). SCB5980.

Heichelheim, F., A Clay Lamp of the First Century AD. PCAS 35: 139-40 (Article in serial). SCB6293.

Lethbridge, T.C., 1936, Further Excavations in the Early Iron Age and Romano-British Cemetery at Guilden Morden. PCAS 36: 109-20 (Article in serial). SCB11104.

1936, JRS 26, p. 250 (Article in serial). SCB6742.

1952, JRS 42, p. 108 (Article in serial). SCB6750.

1969, JRS 59, p. 223 (Article in serial). SCB6763.

1881, Arch J 38, p. 289 (Article in serial). SCB915.

Collingwood and Richmond, Arch of Roman Britain 6, p. 294 (Bibliographic reference). SCB2445.

Wilkes, J.J and Elrington, C.R., 1978, The Victoria County History of Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely. Volume 7, p. 79 (Bibliographic reference). SCB14675.

<15> Walker, F.M., 1924, JRS 14, p. 225 (Article in serial). SCB6767.

<16> Liversidge, J., 1977, Roman Burials in the Cambridge Area. PCAS 67:11-38 (Article in serial). SCB10267.

<17> Whimster, R., 1981, Burial Practices in Iron Age Britain (British Archaeological Report) series Vol 90 (Monograph). SCB61257.

Sources and further reading

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