The two complete Roman pottery vessels, likely to date back to the second century AD, have been handed over to the Royal Cornwall Museum in Truro and are now on public display.

The rare urns, which both contained the cremated remains of the same elderly woman, were discovered by archaeologists from Cornwall County Council's Historic Environment Service during preparations for the Roseland Parc Retirement Village development in Tregony. The landowners, Heather and Iain Fairbairn, had commissioned an archaeological assessment and excavation before construction of the new concept in retirement living started in 2005.

The vessels were found buried on the edge of a rectangular enclosure at the edge of the site, overlooking the River Fal. The larger vessel, a cooking pot, was probably manufactured from local clays but is very similar to the black-burnished vessels from the Poole harbour area of Dorset. The other is a small handled jug made from clays from the Lizard. A hole had been knocked in the vessel wall directly opposite the handle - an act of decommission' sometimes found in Romano-British vessels found in funerary or ritual deposits but not previously known in Cornwall.

The excavations at Roseland Parc have provided a rare glimpse of Romano-British burial practice in Cornwall. The discovery may point to the adoption of burial practices from elsewhere in Britain by the local inhabitants or perhaps it was the grave from someone outside the county.

Following the handover, the urns have gone on immediate display at the museum.

"The urns will be displayed in the new accessions case near the entrance for some weeks and then moved to the Roman case and the permanent displays,'" said Jane Marley, RCM's Curator of World Archaeology and World Cultures.