Novum Inventorium Sepulchrale - Kentish Anglo-Saxon graves and grave-goods in the Sonia Hawkes archive

The county of Kent is exceptionally rich in Anglo-Saxon cemeteries. Systematic excavations of some of these cemeteries in the 18th and early 19th centuries provided a wealth of finds that reflect Kent's close political and economic ties to the Frankish world in the 5th to 7th centuries. Excavations by the Revd Bryan Faussett in 1757-73 uncovered c. 750 graves from sites at Crundale, Guilton, Kingston Down, Bishopsbourne, Barfrestone and Sibertswold Downs, Bekesbourne and Chartham Down. Further excavations, in particular those carried out at Bifrons and Sarre in the 19th century, raised the number of excavated graves to well over 1000. The bulk of information was made available to subscribers in the Inventorium Sepulchrale (Faussett 1856) and in the journal Archaeologia Cantiana.

In 1961, the need to re-publish this important material to a modern standard led Sonia Hawkes of the University of Oxford's Institute of Archaeology to undertake the publication of Kentish cemeteries as the first stage of a national monograph series, the Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Graves and Grave-Goods. Work carried out between 1961 and 1971 dealt with the c. 1140 graves and large numbers of unassociated objects from Bifrons, Sarre and the seven sites excavated by Faussett, resulting in an extensive archive comprising object descriptions, drawings, photographs and X-rays. The Bifrons burials have been posthumously published elsewhere (Hawkes 2000). This website, made possible by a grant from the is Arts and Humanities Research Council, makes the remainder of the archive widely available for the first time. It is hoped that it will enable future generations of researchers to gain a better understanding of the origins of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.

肯特郡（Kent）拥有极为丰富的盎格鲁-撒克逊（Anglo-Saxon）墓地遗存。18世纪至19世纪早期对其中部分墓地开展的系统性考古发掘，出土了大量文物，这些遗存反映出公元5至7世纪肯特与法兰克世界紧密的政治与经济联系。1757年至1773年间，布莱恩·福塞特牧师（Revd Bryan Faussett）主持的发掘工作，在克兰代尔（Crundale）、吉尔顿（Guilton）、金斯顿丘陵（Kingston Down）、毕晓普斯本（Bishopsbourne）、巴弗雷斯通（Barfrestone）、西伯特斯沃德丘陵（Sibertswold Downs）、贝克斯本（Bekesbourne）与查塔姆丘陵（Chartham Down）等遗址揭露了约750座墓葬。19世纪在比弗伦斯（Bifrons）与萨尔（Sarre）开展的进一步发掘，使已发掘墓葬总数突破1000座。这批核心资料最初通过《墓葬目录》（Inventorium Sepulchrale，福塞特，1856）与《肯特考古学》（Archaeologia Cantiana）期刊向订阅者公开。

1961年，为将这批重要资料以现代学术标准重新出版，牛津大学考古研究所的索尼娅·霍克斯（Sonia Hawkes）启动了肯特郡墓地的整理出版工作，作为全国性专著系列《盎格鲁-撒克逊墓葬与随葬品总目》（Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Graves and Grave-Goods）的首个项目。1961年至1971年间的整理工作覆盖了比弗伦斯、萨尔以及福塞特发掘的7处遗址的约1140座墓葬与大量零散出土器物，形成了包含器物描述、线图、照片与X光影像在内的庞大档案。比弗伦斯墓葬的相关成果已于后世由霍克斯（2000）在别处发表。本网站由艺术与人文研究理事会（Arts and Humanities Research Council）资助建成，首次面向公众广泛开放这批档案的剩余内容。我们希望此举能帮助后世研究者更深入地理解盎格鲁-撒克逊王国的起源。