British Archaeology. March / April Issue 2016
Reviewer: Sam Lucy
This is very much a biography, but sections of it will hold considerable interest for archaeologists, particularly those with an interest in the early medieval period. Bryan Faussett (1720-76) was clearly a complex man with many antiquarian interests. He is famed for his excavations of Anglo-Saxon cemeteries in Kent (though he famously interpreted them as the burials of “Britons Romanized” or ‘Romans Britonized”), later published by Charles Roach Smith as the Inventorium Sepulchrale of 1856. This book is based on thorough research using a variety of sources including Faussett’s personal correspondence and household records, and is fascinating for providing detailed context for this period of the history of archaeology. The chapter on Anglo-Saxon death and burial is rather outdated in its approach, and was probably not needed, but this should not be allowed to detract from the value of the book as a whole.
