The inhabitants of Roman Britain would have been very familiar with death and burial. Many women died in childbirth, many children did not survive their early years, and living conditions were hard. During the first 200 years of the Roman occupation, cremation was the most common burial rite. When people were cremated their ashes were collected in a pottery or glass urn, which was buried with other containers, perhaps with small offering to the gods. By law, cemeteries had to be sited outside the town walls, and so approach roads were often flanked by the tombs of wealthy citizens.

During the 3rd century AD, inhumation (burial of the whole body) became more fashionable and richer people often paid for expensive stone or lead coffins and elaborate tombstones for their dead. Poorer people were buried in wooden coffins or were just wrapped in shrouds. Pagan tombstones were often decorated with vine leaves (attributes of Bacchus) or pine-cones (symbols of immortality). A favourite scene was a funeral banquet. Many inscriptions make it clear that the deceased was a loved wife, husband or child. The tombstones of children, showing them with their toys or a pet, are very touching. Christian burials differ from pagan ones in having few or no grave goods or offering to the gods in them. The coffins are also usually oriented east-west following the orientation of churches.