LEXDEN TUMULUS

ENGLAND

A large royal burial mound in Colchester, dating from about 10 BC or a little later. When it was excavated in 1924 it was found to contain the 2,000-year-old burial of a king inside a substantial timber mortuary house. He was laid out on a bed, surrounded by an array of grave goods: shoes, clothes, jars, amphorae of wine, swords, shields, and spears. He may have been one of the Catuvellaunian kings, Addedomarus, Tasciovanus, or even his son Cunobelinus.

The royal burial discovered not long ago at Prittlewell near Southend was similar —in fact remarkably similar, considering that it dates from about AD 620. There is the same sort of timber mortuary house buried beneath a substantial barrow and accompanied by exotic items from as far afield as the Mediterranean. There is even the same sort of folding stool. At first sight, these two kings belong not merely to the same culture, but to the same dynasty—they might be brothers, and yet they are separated from each other by 600 years.

Addedomarus, the likely occupant of the Lexden Tumulus, was King of the Catuvellauni, while Saebert (who died in 616), the likely candidate for the Prittlewell Prince, was King of Essex. They are separated by what we have been conditioned to see as two major conquests—by the Romans and the Anglo-Saxons —and by culture changes, yet the evidence shows that there was a strong force for continuity embedded within Britain, and within the lands of the Atlantic Celts generally.