Another probable Roman burial in Lexden cemetery, Colchester

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On the 12th May, the Colchester Archaeological Trust conducted an  evaluation at a property in St Clare Road, in the Lexden area of Colchester. The site is within an important archaeological area of the town, near to the site of the famous Iron Age 'Lexden tumulus'* and is in the area of the extensive 'Lexden cemetery'.

The 'Lexden cemetery' dates to the Late Iron Age and early Roman periods and it developed along both sides of the Roman road from Colchester to London, the line of which is now followed by the modern Lexden Road. The houses on the opposite side of St Clare Road also back on to the line of the Lexden Dyke, part of the Iron Age defensive dyke system of Camulodunum. There were areas of extra-mural settlement and cemeteries around Roman Colchester's walled town centre.

Machine excavation of an evaluation trench was followed by hand cleaning the exposed features.  Archaeologists for the Trust uncovered two Roman ditches and a Roman pit.

They also uncovered a feature which was the right shape and size for a Roman inhumation burial: Sub-rectangular, vertical-sided and flat-bottomed, it was 1.82 metres long.

This feature produced only a small amount of very degraded bone and no other finds: however, is is interpreted as a probable Roman inhumation burial.

Read More :  http://www.bajrfed.co.uk/bajrpress/another-probable-roman-burial-in-lexden-cemetery-colchester/