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Excavations at Verulamium 1956. Second Interim Report

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2011

Extract

The excavations at Verulamium inaugurated by the Research Committee of this Society were continued a second season from 9th July to 31st August 1956. They were far more extended than had been planned, for shortly before the start news was received that work on the new road was expected to begin early in 1957, much earlier than had been anticipated. It became necessary, therefore, to double the scale of operations in order that no major site should remain unexplored. Accordingly up to thirty-one paid labourers were employed and the maximum number of helpers at any one time was eighty-five. The sum of £2,520 was expended, of which the Ministry of Works subscribed £800. On a site so extended and so divided by hedges and modern traffic, the direction of the dig would have been impossible without skilled assistance; twelve site supervisors were thus in all employed.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1957

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References

page 1 note 1 The overall length was just over half a mile.

page 1 note 2 Miss M. G. Wilson, F.S.A., and Mr. Guy Duncan served for the whole period. The following supervised for varying periods: Miss G. Talbot, Miss S. Chadwick, Mrs. Ravetz, Messrs. J. Wacher, A. ApSimon, M. Needham, J. J. Butler, J. McCulloch, D. Corbet, and Dr. W. H. C. Frend, F.S.A. I was fortunate to have Mr. M. B. Cookson as photographer, and Mrs. J. Birmingham to run the pottery shed. The day-to-day finances were administered by Mr. H. J. M. Petty, and Miss E. Callow catered for the camp.

page 4 note 1 Antiq. Journ. xxxvi, 6; hereafter referred to as 1955 Report.

page 5 note 1 R. E. M., and Wheeler, T. V., Verulamium, pl. XVIII.Google Scholar

page 5 note 2 Arch, xcii, pl. XXX, 130.

page 5 note 3 Op. cit., p. 50.

page 5 note 4 Ibid., p. 26.

page 5 note 5 The only rim in layer 40 was of the type figured in the Verulamium 1938 Report, Arch. xc, 106, fig. 11, 17, in hard dark brownish-grey ware (Claudian). The latest sherd in the early bank (layer 22) is a small fragment of reeded rim in hard granulated grey ware (fig. 4, no. 3). Cf. discussion in K. M. Kenyon, The Jewry Wall Site Leicester, p. 88, where a date c. A.D. 75–80 is suggested for their coming into common use. But this may be too late if we accept the dating of the type in Verulamium 1938.

page 5 note 6 Miss K. M. Richardson also (Arch. xc, 84,109) had difficulty in equating her burnt timber building in insula xvii, with the events of A.D. 61 on account of certain Samian sherds. In such cases, however, the events of history may perhaps be thought to date the Samian rather than vice versa.

page 5 note 7 Hawkes, C. F. C. and Hall, M. R., Camulodunum, pp. 4043.Google Scholar

page 6 note 1 Antiq. Journ. xxi, 50–51.

page 6 note 2 Camulodunum, pp. 129–33, pl. XVI.

page 6 note 3 Antiq. Journ. xxxiv, 68–70, pl. XVI.

page 6 note 4 It should be recorded that a single fragment of such a mould was found below building XXVII, 4.

page 6 note 5 Arci. xc, 14–15.

page 6 note 6 Ibid., p. 18.

page 7 note 1 Antiq. Journ. xvii, 38, pl. XXVI; Ibid. xx, 500.

page 7 note 2 Trans. St. Albans A. & A. Soc. (1953), p. 20, hereafter referred to as 1949 Report.Google Scholar

page 7 note 3 Antiq. Journ. xvii, 38.

page 7 note 4 J.R.S. xl, 105; 1949 Report, fig. 2.

page 8 note 1 But in that case these would project 8 feet into the street at the south corner.

page 8 note 2 Here it should be pointed out that the two coins of Hadrian recorded in Verulamium, p. 131, as being sealed beneath the building level of the forum, were in reality one of Hadrian and one of Faustina I, and were found above this level. Antiq. Journ. xvii, 41, and fig. 5.

page 8 note 3 Arch. Journ. ciii, 36.

page 9 note 1 Cf. Verulamium, fig. 27, 12, dated c. A.D. 160–190.

page 9 note 2 Cf. the channels found near the east angle of the forum, Antiq. Journ. xvii, 41, and fig. 5.

page 9 note 3 Ibid., pp. 38–41.

page 9 note 4 1949 Report, plan 2.

page 10 note 1 Antiq. Journ. xx, 501–3.

page 10 note 2 Though it is fair to add that Mr. Lunn's car park ditch does not quite accommodate itself to this reconstruction, as can be seen, unless indeed a causeway has been left for Watling Street.

page 10 note 3 1949 Report, pp. 19–20, and ‘plan 4’, a section drawing very hard to interpret in the absence of any explanation of the symbols employed.

page 10 note 4 Camulodunum, pp. 10–11.

page 10 note 5 There is so far no evidence of a pre-Conquest date for the ditch.

page 11 note 1 On this question see Richmond, I. A., Roman Britain (1955), pp. 100—1.Google Scholar

page 12 note 1 For plan, see J.R.S. xlvi, 136.

page 12 note 2 For the 1955 plan, see J.R.S. xlvi, 133.

page 13 note 1 Similar walls have been noted by Colonel Meates at the Farningham and Lullingstone villas.

page 13 note 2 The party-walls in the south-west wing had no masonry base, but were entirely of clay. Such walls have been identified also at Canterbury.

page 13 note 3 1955 Report, p. 2.

page 14 note 1 Prof. J. M. C. Toynbee suggests an almost-closed acanthus flower in profile emerging from a green calyx of leaves. An alternative view is that the artist misunderstood his copy and intended these as torches.

page 14 note 2 Some fragments show that a red band bordered the scroll beneath. Below this is a black panel decorated with yellow tendrils, and below this again a green band above a red panel decorated much like pl. III a.

page 14 note 3 Papers of British School at Rome, xviii, 1–43.