A broad ceramic funerary urn, globular with broad sloping shoulder and everted rim; circumferential lines to the neck and shoulder; two bands of horseshoe stamps to the shoulder and sets of three stamps at the base of the neck.

PROVENANCE:
Excavated from an Anglo-Saxon cemetary in Cambridgeshire, UK, in the late 19th century.

FOOTNOTES:
Cremation was the preferred burial rite of the Angles and other peoples of eastern England. Once the body had been burnt on a pyre, the remaining bones were recovered and placed in a specially prepared urn, often with small personal items such as a comb, knife or nail-cleaning set. The personality and social identity of the deceased was perpetuated in the form and the decoration of the urn, which formed the only permanent record of the individual.