Download or read book Excavations of an Iron Age Settlement and Roman Religious Complex at Ivy Chimneys Witham Essex 1978 83 written by Robin Turner and published by East Anglian Archaeology. This book was released on 1999 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The site at Ivy Chimneys, Witham, appears to have been occupied continuously throughout the Iron Age, and remained in use until the end of the Roman period. Most traces of domestic Iron Age structures were removed by ploughing, but the surviving ditches seem to indicate more than a simple farmstead. Very large, probably defensive, ditches of late Iron Age date may imply that the settlement at Ivy Chimneys was a focus of activity at that time, and a small amount of circumstantial evidence hints at a religious use for part of the site. The nature of activity in early Roman times is unclear, although there is ample evidence for occupation of some form. The instigation of two large, long-lived, artificial depressions at this time may point towards the beginnings of Roman religious activity on the site. In the 3rd century AD a large, almost square, post-hole structure, interpreted as a Romano-Celtic temple, was constructed on the crest of the hill, and was enclosed by various ditches remnant of earlier activity. A large pond with a sophisticated water regulation system was constructed at about this time, and isolated timber columns may also have been present. A new temple appears to have been constructed in the early 4th century, represented by a continuous ditch enclosing a sub-rectangular area. An adjacent depression contained votive material and may have been used for religious ceremonies, although a pottery kiln appears to have produced only conventional material. The interpretation of a Christian phase in the mid-4th century is based on the presence of a baptismal font constructed of tile, and of a small two-celled structure, possibly a chapel. Other evidence may indirectly point to a pause in the pagan activity, but no specifically Christian portable objects were found. In the late 4th and early 5th century the site was certainly used as a pagan shrine, as attested by numerous votive offerings such as coins and pieces of jewellery. There is no evidence for the date of the final destruction of the site, but the presence of a relatively high number of Theodosian coins suggests continued activity well into the 5th century.
Download or read book Romano British Settlement and Cemeteries at Mucking written by Sam Lucy and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2016-11-30 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excavations at Mucking, Essex, between 1965 and 1978, revealed extensive evidence for a multiphase rural Romano-British settlement, perhaps an estate center, and five associated cemetery areas (170 burials) with different burial areas reserved for different groups within the settlement. The settlement demonstrated clear continuity from the preceding Iron Age occupation with unbroken sequences of artefacts and enclosures through the first century AD, followed by rapid and extensive remodeling, which included the laying out a Central Enclosure and an organized water supply with wells, accompanied by the start of large-scale pottery production. After the mid-second century AD the Central Enclosure was largely abandoned and settlement shifted its focus more to the Southern Enclosure system with a gradual decline though the 3rd and 4th centuries although continued burial, pottery and artefactual deposition indicate that a form of settlement continued, possibly with some low-level pottery production. Some of the latest Roman pottery was strongly associated with the earliest Anglo-Saxon style pottery suggesting the existence of a terminal Roman settlement phase that essentially involved an ‘Anglo-Saxon’ community. Given recent revisions of the chronology for the early Anglo-Saxon period, this casts an intriguing light on the transition, with radical implications for understandings of this period. Each of the cemetery areas was in use for a considerable length of time. Taken as a whole, Mucking was very much a componented place/complex; it was its respective parts that fostered its many cemeteries, whose diverse rites reflect the variability and roles of the settlement’s evidently varied inhabitants.
Download or read book Artefacts in Roman Britain written by Lindsay Allason-Jones and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-02-10 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Helps the student understand the numerous artefacts from Roman Britain and what they reveal about life in the province.
Download or read book Iron Age and Roman Coin Hoards in Britain written by Roger Bland and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2020-06-30 with total page 767 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More coin hoards have been recorded from Roman Britain than from any other province of the Empire. This comprehensive and lavishly illustrated volume provides a survey of over 3260 hoards of Iron Age and Roman coins found in England and Wales with a detailed analysis and discussion. Theories of hoarding and deposition and examined, national and regional patterns in the landscape settings of coin hoards presented, together with an analysis of those hoards whose findspots were surveyed and of those hoards found in archaeological excavations. It also includes an unprecedented examination of the containers in which coin hoards were buried and the objects found with them. The patterns of hoarding in Britain from the late 2nd century BC to the 5th century AD are discussed. The volume also provides a survey of Britain in the 3rd century AD, as a peak of over 700 hoards are known from the period from AD 253–296. This has been a particular focus of the project which has been a collaborative research venture between the University of Leicester and the British Museum funded by the AHRC. The aim has been to understand the reasons behind the burial and non-recovery of these finds. A comprehensive online database (https://finds.org.uk/database) underpins the project, which also undertook a comprehensive GIS analysis of all the hoards and field surveys of a sample of them.
Download or read book Roman Britain Through its Objects written by Iain Ferris and published by Amberley Publishing Limited. This book was released on 2012-09-15 with total page 470 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An alternative history of Roman Britain
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Archaeology written by David K. Pettegrew and published by Oxford Handbooks. This book was released on 2019 with total page 724 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This handbook brings together work by leading scholars of the archaeology of early Christianity in the Mediterranean and surrounding regions. The 34 essays to this volume ground the history, culture, and society of the first seven centuries of Christianity in the latest currents of archaeological method, theory, and research."--
Download or read book Excavations at Great Holts Farm Boreham Essex 1992 94 written by Mark Germany and published by East Anglian Archaeology. This book was released on 2003 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A thorough and detailed report on the excavation of a low-status Roman site in advance of gravel extraction in Boreham, 8 km to the north-east of Chelmsford. Whilst briefly discussing prehistoric evidence at the site relating to Neolithic deposits, early to middle Bronze Age ring-ditches, a late Bronze Age settlement and an early Iron Age building, the main focus is on the 2nd- to 4th-century Roman villa and associated settlements and deposits. The Roman aisled villa and house was found to be set within a ditched compound with a network of fields and enclosures and also encompassing a bath-house and ancillary buildings including a granary and workshop or store. The methodology and results of the excavation are rpesented in detail and analysis of finds, zoological and botanical remains attest to the economy and means of production in the site as well as its wider significance for the area. Summaries in English, French and German.
Download or read book Beyond the Medieval Village written by Stephen Rippon and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2008-11-27 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The varied character of Britain's countryside provides communities with a strong sense of local identity. One of the most significant features of the landscape in Southern Britain is the way that its character differs from region to region, with compact villages in the Midlands contrasting with the sprawling hamlets of East Anglia and isolated farmsteads of Devon. Even more remarkable is the very 'English' feel of the landscape in southern Pembrokeshire, in the far south west of Wales. Hoskins described the English landscape as 'the richest historical record we possess', and in this volume Stephen Rippon explores the origins of regional variations in landscape character, arguing that while some landscapes date back to the centuries either side of the Norman Conquest, other areas across southern Britain underwent a profound change around the 8th century AD.
Download or read book Territoriality and the Early Medieval Landscape written by Stephen Rippon and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2022-04-05 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All communities have a strong sense of identity with the area in which they live, which for England in the early medieval period manifested itself in a series of territorial entities, ranging from large kingdoms down to small districts known as pagi or regiones. This book investigates these small early folk territories, and the way that they evolved into the administrative units recorded in Domesday, across an entire kingdom - that of the East Saxons (broadly speaking, what is now Essex, Middlesex, most of Hertfordshire, and south Suffolk). A wide range of evidence is drawn upon, including archaeology, written documents, place-names and the early cartographic sources. The book looks in particular at the relationship between Saxon immigrants and the native British population, and argues that initially these ethnic groups occupied different parts of the landscape, until a dynasty which assumed an Anglo-Saxon identity achieved political ascendency (its members included the so-called "Prittlewell Prince", buried with spectacular grave-good in Prittlewell, near Southend-on- Sea in southern Essex). Other significant places discussed include London, the seat of the first East Saxon bishopric, the possible royal vills at Wicken Bonhunt near Saffron Walden and Maldon, and St Peter's Chapel at Bradwell-on-Sea, one of the most important surviving churches from the early Christian period.
Download or read book An Archaeology of Images written by Miranda Aldhouse Green and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-08-02 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using archaeology and social anthropology, and more than 100 original line drawings and photographs, An Archaeology of Images takes a fresh look at how ancient images of both people and animals were used in the Iron Age and Roman societies of Europe, 600 BC to AD 400 and investigates the various meanings with which images may have been imbued. The book challenges the usual interpretation of statues, reliefs and figurines as passive things to be looked at or worshipped, and reveals them instead as active artefacts designed to be used, handled and broken. It is made clear that the placing of images in temples or graves may not have been the only episode in their biographies, and a single image may have gone through several existences before its working life was over. Miranda Aldhouse Green examines a wide range of other issues, from gender and identity to foreignness, enmity and captivity, as well as the significance of the materials used to make the images. The result is a comprehensive survey of the multifarious functions and experiences of images in the communities that produced and consumed them. Challenging many previously held assumptions about the meaning and significance of Celtic and Roman art, An Archaeology of Images will be controversial yet essential reading for anyone interested in this area.
Download or read book Guide to the Study of Ancient Magic written by David Frankfurter and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-03-19 with total page 817 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the midst of academic debates about the utility of the term “magic” and the cultural meaning of ancient words like mageia or khesheph, this Guide to the Study of Ancient Magic seeks to advance the discussion by separating out three topics essential to the very idea of magic. The three major sections of this volume address (1) indigenous terminologies for ambiguous or illicit ritual in antiquity; (2) the ancient texts, manuals, and artifacts commonly designated “magical” or used to represent ancient magic; and (3) a series of contexts, from the written word to materiality itself, to which the term “magic” might usefully pertain. The individual essays in this volume cover most of Mediterranean and Near Eastern antiquity, with essays by both established and emergent scholars of ancient religions. In a burgeoning field of “magic studies” trying both to preserve and to justify critically the category itself, this volume brings new clarity and provocative insights. This will be an indispensable resource to all interested in magic in the Bible and the Ancient Near East, ancient Greece and Rome, Early Christianity and Judaism, Egypt through the Christian period, and also comparative and critical theory. Contributors are: Magali Bailliot, Gideon Bohak, Véronique Dasen, Albert de Jong, Jacco Dieleman, Esther Eidinow, David Frankfurter, Fritz Graf, Yuval Harari, Naomi Janowitz, Sarah Iles Johnston, Roy D. Kotansky, Arpad M. Nagy, Daniel Schwemer, Joseph E. Sanzo, Jacques van der Vliet, Andrew Wilburn.
Download or read book The Fields of Britannia written by Stephen Rippon and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It has long been recognized that the landscape of Britain is one of the 'richest historical records we possess', but just how old is it? The Fields of Britannia is the first book to explore how far the countryside of Roman Britain has survived in use through to the present day, shaping the character of our modern countryside. Commencing with a discussion of the differing views of what happened to the landscape at the end of Roman Britain, the volume then brings together the results from hundreds of archaeological excavations and palaeoenvironmental investigations in order to map patterns of land-use across Roman and early medieval Britain. In compiling such extensive data, the volume is able to reconstruct regional variations in Romano-British and early medieval land-use using pollen, animal bones, and charred cereal grains to demonstrate that agricultural regimes varied considerably and were heavily influenced by underlying geology. We are shown that, in the fifth and sixth centuries, there was a shift away from intensive farming but very few areas of the landscape were abandoned completely. What is revealed is a surprising degree of continuity: the Roman Empire may have collapsed, but British farmers carried on regardless, and the result is that now, across large parts of Britain, many of these Roman field systems are still in use.
Download or read book Deer and People written by Naomi Sykes and published by Windgather Press. This book was released on 2014-09-30 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Deer have been central to human cultures throughout time and space: whether as staples to hunter-gatherers, icons of Empire, or the focus of sport. Their social and economic importance has seen some species transported across continents, transforming landscape as they went with the establishment of menageries and park. The fortunes of other species have been less auspicious, some becoming extirpated, or being in threat of extinction, due to pressures of over-hunting and/or human-instigated environmental change. In spite of their diverse, deep-rooted and long standing relations with human societies, no multi-disciplinary volume of research on cervids has until now been produced. This volume draws together research on deer from wide-ranging disciplines and in so doing substantially advances our broader understanding of human-deer relationships in the past and the present. Themes include species dispersal, exploitation patterns, symbolic significance, material culture and art, effects on the landscape and management. The temporal span of research ranges from the Pleistocene to the modern day and covers Europe, North America and Asia. Papers derived from international conferences held at the University of Lincoln and in Paris.
Download or read book Cultural Memories in the Roman Empire written by Karl Galinsky and published by Getty Publications. This book was released on 2016-01-01 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Memory studies — one of the most vibrant research fields of the present day — brings together such diverse disciplines as art and archaeology, history, religion, literature, sociology, media studies, and neuroscience. In scholarship on ancient Rome, studies of social and cultural memory complement traditional approaches, opening up new horizons as we contemplate the ancient world. The fifteen essays presented here explore memory in the Roman Empire, addressing a wide spectrum of cultural phenomena from a range of approaches. Ancient Rome was a memory culture par excellence and memory pervades all aspects of Roman culture, from literature and art to religion and politics. This volume is the first to address the cultural artifacts of Rome through the lens of memory studies. An essential guide to the material culture of Rome, this book brings important new concepts to the fore for both scholars of the ancient world and those of social and cultural memory throughout human history.
Download or read book The Expansion of Christianity written by Roderic Mullen and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2003-12-01 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume covers the geographical spread of Christianity in its first three centuries. It is arranged by continents - Asia, Europe and Africa - to show the gradual development of Christian communities down to the Council of Nicaea in 325. The area surveyed stretches from Wales to the borders of India, and from the Northern coasts of the Black Sea to the plains of Morocco. The result is a picture not only of the outward development of early Christianity but of the variety that existed within it as well.
Download or read book The Origins and Early Development of Witham Essex written by Warwick Rodwell and published by American Oriental Series. This book was released on 1993 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Witham Camp has often been equated with Edward the Elder's burh, but excavations since the 1930's have demonstrated it to be an Iron Age earthwork, in which a castle was planted in the 12th century; here also was the hundredal meeting place and focus of a royal manor. Next to the earthwork lies a minster church, early market site and a small planned settlement, and a short distance away the Knights Templar laid out a substantial new town over the remains of a possible Viking camp. This book reports on this whole remarkable complex, using all available topographical, archaeological and documentary evidence to trace the development of Witham from the prehistoric era to the Middle Ages.
Download or read book Religious Individualisation written by Ralph Haeussler and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2023-03-23 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Roman world was diverse and complex. And so were religious understandings and practices as mirrored in the enormous variety presented by archaeological, iconographic, and epigraphic evidence. Conventional approaches principally focus on the political role of civic cults as a means of social cohesion, often considered to be instrumentalized by elites. But by doing so, religious diversity is frequently overlooked, marginalizing ‘deviating’ cult activities that do not fit the Classical canon, as well as the multitude of funerary practices and other religious activities that were all part of everyday life. In the Roman Empire, a person’s religious experiences were shaped by many and sometimes seemingly incompatible cult practices, whereby the ‘civic’ and ‘imperial’ cults might have had the least impact of all. Our goal therefore is to rethink our methodologies, aiming for a more dynamic image of religion that takes into account the varied and often contradictory choices and actions of individual, which reflects the discrepant religious experiences in the Roman world. Is it possible to ‘poke into the mind’ of an individual in Roman times, whatever his/her status and ethnicity, and try to understand the individual’s diverse experiences in such a complex, interconnected empire, exploring the choices that were open to an individual? This also raises the question whether the concept of individuality is valid for Roman times. In some periods, the impact of individual actions can be more momentous: the very first adoption of Roman-style sculpture, cult practices or Latin theonyms for indigenous deities can set in motion long-term processes that will significantly influence people’s perceptions of local deities, their characteristics, and functions. Do individual choices and preferences prevail over collective identities in the Roman Empire compared to pre-Roman times? To examine these questions, this volume presents case studies that analyze individual actions in the religious sphere.
