261
ON CERTAIN BOTANICAL AND GEOLOGICAL
OBSERVATIONS MADE DURING THE OPEN-
ING OF THE ROMANO-BRITISH BARROW
ON MERSEA ISLAND.
By S. HAZZLEDINE WARREN, F.G.S.
[Read 29th November 1913]
Being the Report on an Investigation undertaken by
the Morant Club, with a Contribution by Mr. G. M. Davies,
F.G.S., and a Prefatory Note by the Hon. Secretaries of the
Club.
(1.) PREFATORY NOTE.—During the summer of 1912,
the large Barrow (22 ft. 6 in. high and about no ft. in diameter)
which stands prominently on the northern edge of the small
central plateau of Mersea Island, about half-a-mile south-
east of the Stroodway, was opened by this club, with the per-
mission of the owner, Mr. Charles Brown, and under the personal
superintendence of our member, Mr. Hazzledine Warren.
The result was the discovery of a very interesting Romano-
British Interment, apparently of the second half of the first
century A.D., and evidently that of some person of great
importance—probably a British Chieftain ruling under Roman
suzerainty, rather than an actual Roman.
The tomb consisted externally of a cist or chamber, sub-
stantially constructed of Roman tiles, mortar, and boulders.
This contained a leaden casket, about 13 in. square, within which
was a beautiful globular urn, of sea-green glass, nearly thirteen
inches in diameter, having a broad flat recurved rim. This
glass urn held the incinerated remains of an adult. The con-
tents of the tomb are now in the Colchester Museum.
A full account of the results achieved from the archaeological
point of view has been published already1. The present report
deals only with certain incidental results which are of botanical
and geological interest. These could not be included appro-
priately in the archaeological report and are, therefore, now
treated separately here.
We wish to repeat our statement, made in the general report,
1Trans. Essex Archaeol. Soc., n.s. vol. xiii., pp. 116-139 (1913).