Lexden Earthworks, Colchester, Essex
These are the banks and ditches of a series of late Iron Age defences protecting the western side of Camulodunum – pre-Roman Colchester. The settlement covered an area of c4,000 hectares. It was an important site throughout both the Iron Age and Roman periods. There are also many earlier earthworks hereabouts. These include the Bronze Age Lexden Tumulus. This was reused in the Iron Age and is allegedly the burial place of the British chieftain Cunobelinus. It was excavated in 1924. Grave goods with in it included traces of very find gold, a coin of Augustus (17 BC) mounted as a protrait medallion in silver, chain mail and silver studs, iron swords, a number of bronzes including a boar and a griffin, enamelled discs, remains of a "funeral carriage" including a linch pin and a number of amphorae. This site is now in the care of English Heritage (2010). Find out more.
