The Dane John Mound is a Roman burial mound (tumulus) located within the south-eastern corner of the walled Roman town of Durovernum Cantiacorum (Canterbury), active from the 1st to 4th centuries AD. The mound is one of a small cemetery group raised in the 1st or 2nd century AD just inside what later became the line of the town walls, and stands around 24 metres in diameter. It was substantially reshaped in 1790 when landscaped into a public pleasure garden by Alderman James Simmons.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
The mound represents one of the best-preserved examples of a Romano-British barrow within an urban context, paralleling burial tumuli known elsewhere in south-east Britain such as the Bartlow Hills in Cambridgeshire. Its position within the later city walls illustrates the evolution of Durovernum from an open civitas capital to a defended late Roman town, with the burials being incorporated into the line of the late 3rd-century circuit.
Excavations in the 19th and 20th centuries, including work by Frank Jenkins, confirmed the mound's Roman origin and identified at least one cremation burial and associated grave goods, alongside traces of other levelled tumuli in the vicinity. Later investigations within Dane John Gardens have also revealed sections of the Roman town wall, its rampart, and medieval reuse of the defences.
The Dane John Mound is a Roman burial mound (tumulus) located within the south-eastern corner of the walled Roman town of Durovernum Cantiacorum (Canterbury), active from the 1st to 4th centuries AD. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a site site from the Roman period in Britain.
Dane John Mound and Roman and medieval remains in Dane John Garden is classified as a Roman site — a civilian site in the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer. Roman Britain's archaeology encompasses thousands of sites ranging from legionary fortresses and marching camps to villas, temples and towns.
Several Roman sites lie within a short distance, including Roman remains on Marlowe car park (0.2 km), Vacant land within Roman walls in Adelaide Place (0.3 km), Roman site, Butchery Lane (0.4 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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Research the area around Dane John Mound and Roman and medieval remains in Dane John Garden