The Aston mirror plate and its handle were found in ploughsoil, but were derived from a cremation burial which included two pottery vessels tentatively dated in the first century A.D. The area in which the discovery was made shows considerable activity in the Belgic and Romano-British periods. A detailed examination of the mirror, using, inter alia, light-section photomicrography, enables an attempt to be made to group the known mirrors using criteria derived from the techniques employed in the decoration; the Aston mirror falls into an East Anglian Ridge/Chiltern group.

The small fort of the promontory type with which this report deals lies in the parish of Lezayre, on the shore of Ramsey Bay on the brooghs which form the eastern edge of the undulating Andreas plateau towards the sea. Here, in the northern part of the bay, the cliffs are built up by warped stratified sands with reddish sandy and loamy bands. Where springs caused or initiated erosion the straight north–south line of the broogh is intersected by short valleys with steep slopes and marshy bottoms. Where, as occasionally happens, two of such valleys lie near to each other, the gullies create small peninsulas with level surfaces connected only by a narrow neck with the plateau. Ideal sites for habitation above the broad sandy beach are formed by natural agencies, sites which need only a small amount of adjustment to make them easily defensible. A certain disadvantage arises from the fact that both the platform of the promontory and the surface of the plateau lie in the same level, in the present case 60 ft. above the high-water mark.

Excavations in 1970 took place on three major and two smaller sites. The early Norman chapel discovered this year within the castle at Castle Yard was described in the previous interim report. At Lankhills sixty-eight fourth-century graves were examined, bringing the total excavated to 219. The graves can now be classified in an approximately chronological sequence according to contents and burial practice. At Lower Brook Street early fifth-century pottery of North German origin suggests the presence of mercenary or federate elements in the final stages of the Roman town. St. Mary's Church appears to have originated in the tenth century by the addition of an apse to an earlier rectangular stone building possibly of domestic character. In Houses IX and XII several phases of twelfth-century timber construction were excavated, but Houses X and XI, adjacent to St. Mary's to north and south, seem to have been open plots at this time. The later phases of St. Pancras' Church were examined and the twelfth-century church uncovered. On the Cathedral Green the excavation of Building E showed that it was the south range of a large courtyard complex, probably to be interpreted as the claustral buildings of New Minster in the period c. 1066–1110. Earlier stages may represent the infirmary of the Anglo-Saxon monastery. At Wolvesey Palace the east hall of c. 1130 was stripped and the later phases of its complex development worked out in detail. A ‘reredorter’ block added to the north end of the west hall about 1135 was cleared of many later phases of reconstruction. The excavation of the central courtyard revealed a twelfth-century well-house. A final season will take place in 1971.

An aeolipile is a device whose essential feature is that vapour confined in it under pressure can issue from it only through a small aperture. Although the Oxford English Dictionary agrees with the French Academy in deriving ‘aeolipile’ from a combination of the name of the god of the winds, Aeolus, and the Latin pylae or the Greek Πύλαι, implying thus that originally it meant something like ‘doorway of Aeolus’ or ‘gates of the winds’, I am inclined to accept rather its derivation from ‘Aeolus’ and the Latin pila, a ball, and an original meaning ‘ball of Aeolus’ or ‘of the winds’. Vitruvius, writing during the reign of Augustus, says, in a passage concerned with the winds, ‘id autem verum esse ex aeolipilis aereis licet aspicere … fiunt enim aeolipilae aereae cavae. hae habent punctum angustissimum quo aquae infunduntur conlocanturque ad ignem, et antequam calescent non habent ullum spiritum, simul autem ut fervere coeperint, efficiunt ad ignem vehementem flatum’. This seems to show pretty clearly, by both the form of the word and the description of the object to which Vitruvius applies it, that the word was based on pila and not on pylae. Conceivably it was the spherical shape of early aeolipilic fire-blowers which suggested the trunnioned steam-filled ball provided with projecting L-shaped tubes from which the steam could issue and, by its reaction, cause the ball to revolve, which Hero of Alexandria describes in his Pneumatika, and which is still used to demonstrate to students a jet of steam's inherent reactive force. Hero's text does not, however, include any word relatable to the term Vitruvius applied to his fire-blowing spheres.

The first three seasons of a joint Anglo-Catalan research project in north-eastern Spain have concentrated on the Roman villa of Vilauba. It has been shown that the site was occupied for some nine centuries, but the most important discoveries have been the elucidation of substantial phases of occupation from the fifth to seventh centuries A.D., which included in the latest phase a large press building for olive oil. These findings have pointed to the problems of the transition from the Roman to the early medieval period, which have also been met in the field survey of the surrounding region. The medieval settlement pattern had emerged by the ninth or tenth centuries, but its relationship with the Roman pattern remains to be clearly established. Important discoveries have also been made about considerable geomorphological changes in the area, which can be dated to the post-Roman period. A range of techniques have been used in the survey, including recording of standing buildings, geophysical survey and surface collection, which, added to the environmental and pottery studies from the excavation, are shedding important light on the Roman and early medieval rural development of this part of Spain and on the western Mediterranean more generally.

This paper presents the results of a detailed analysis of surviving paintwork on the chancel arch, the carved animal heads and the figurative panel in the west porch at the Anglo-Saxon church of St Mary, Deerhurst, Gloucestershire, UK. The context of the polychromy in relation to the ninth-century fabric of the church is assessed. The detailed results of the technical analysis are presented. The original scheme of painted decoration is described, including the newly discovered plant scroll painted on the arch. The results of the examination are evaluated, setting the polychrome decoration of the ninth-century church into its contemporary context in England and on the Continent, with special regard to both the technical and the artistic aspects.

This paper presents a new assessment of the hoard of five gold finger rings and ten silver groats found together near the River Thame, in Oxfordshire, in 1940. It proposes a refined date of manufacture for the exquisite reliquary ring and reports newly identified elements of its design, suggesting that it held a second relic. A holistic understanding of the landscape, topography, contemporary institutions, places and events is used to interpret the hoarded material. It is advocated that the hoarded rings and coins were probably the property of Notley Abbey, not Thame Abbey as has been thought, and that they were rescued from Thomas Cromwell’s Commissioners in 1538 for burial at a place of cultural significance. The paper also draws attention to some of the problems of interpreting and dating hoards and it emphasises the continuity of hoarding practice from prehistory into the later- and post-medieval periods.

Great Yarmouth has been fortunate in its historians and archaeologists. There, can, for instance, be few towns in England boasting so useful a record of its past as Henry Manship's History of Great Yarmouth, edited by Charles John Palmer, F.S.A., in 1854. Manship's father, another Henry, was elected into the Corporation in 1550, and appears to have taken an active part in affairs connected with the Haven in 1560. The younger Henry was educated at the Free Grammar School, and, whilst still a schoolboy, laboured with his own hands at the fortifications. He was Town Clerk from 1579 to 1585, and continued to be a member of the Corporation until 1604. Thereafter, although sometimes at loggerheads with some of his contemporaries, he busied himself upon his history of the town, compiled from records, most of which have since been lost. The history was finished in 1619, and the Corporation voted Manship a gratuity of £50. He died in poverty in 1625.

The invasion of Ireland by the Anglo-Norman armies in 1169–70 is not normally regarded as an event of any importance in the history of English art. Such an attitude is understandable, for Irish works in the Middle Ages rarely made any substantial contribution to artistic developments elsewhere. But the military activities of 1169–70 did have important results from an English point of view, since they greatly extended the ‘geography’ of English art and architecture. Following the Anglo-Norman conquest, Irish churches increasingly looked to England for ideas, and native styles were gradually supplanted by imported techniques. Very few of the standard histories of English architecture or sculpture devote much attention to this process, and a page or two describing the occasional Irish cathedral is normally deemed sufficient. Yet this does little justice to the Anglo-Norman achievement in Ireland, where, in just over a century, an immense amount of building was carried out. Most of this was English in style and ought to be considered within the context of English developments. Indeed, in some cases Irish evidence can considerably extend an understanding of specifically English problems: no study of West Country architecture, for example, would be complete without a parallel study of contemporary Irish work.

You are well aware that the great Hall at Westminster has been for some time past undergoing a complete repair and restoration under the direction of my brother, Sir Robert Smirke. A work of this nature, requiring at every step the closest observation and the most scrupulous care, is necessarily slow, and its progress was for a while suspended by the late destructive fire, from which this Hall was with difficulty preserved. In the execution of these repairs favourable opportunities present themselves of ascertaining the previous state of the building, and of verifying the changes which it is supposed to have undergone. To these interesting objects of inquiry neither my brother nor I have been indifferent, and it is at his suggestion that I have undertaken, as each part of the work is successively brought under examination, to note down and to submit to the Society of Antiquaries whatever may be thought worthy of being recorded in its Transactions.

The sole object I had in view when I first sat down to write, I was to give you an account of a very singular and curious monument of antiquity at New Grange, in the county of Meath, in Ireland; and I meant to have confined this account to a mere description of particulars. But when I came to consider these particulars under reference to the general customs of times more remote than the highest antiquity this monument can be supposed to boast; that consideration opened a field for disquisitions of a much more general and extensive scope.

The importance of Silchester as a seat of industrial activity has been enhanced by the discovery in 1894 of some metallurgical remains, of a unique character, which indicate that near the spot where they were found there had once been a silver refinery. Unfortunately they were not found in situ. They had been cast away as rubbish.

Early as the Romans were known to have visited the southern and southwestern shores of England, it is remarkable that so little should be left to testify to it. Historians inform us that on the banks of the waters that flow into the Plymouth Sound there was once a Roman station, but no record or evidence remains that can establish the precise locality of the ancient Tamara. Attempts have not been wanting to fix it somewhat near the present village of Tamerton, but it appears to me that there is little to support this idea beyond advantageous topographical considerations. The remains, however, of an old Roman road are still in existence on the property of the Rev. Collins Trelawny, which appear to suggest that the line by which those old travellers passed from station to station westward to the tin districts of Cornwall lay much nearer to Plymouth.

The report which we have the honour of submitting to the Society, on behalf of the Executive Committee of the Silchester Excavation Fund, of the discoveries made during the past year, is also the record of the systematic excavation of the site for the sixth successive season.

So much has already been published about the ancient trade with Britain for tin, and the accounts given by Diodorus Siculus and Cæsar have so often been discussed, that it would appear as if no further evidence were obtainable. It has seemed also as if there were unfortunate contradictions between the classical authorities, which made their statements untrustworthy, or at any rate too vague and too little exact to be of value.

The excavations described in this report were aimed at establishing more about the character of the Cambridgeshire Car Dyke and at defining the period during which it was in active use. The dyke, which traverses with several changes of direction the low gravel and loam promontory between the fork of the Cam or Granta immediately south of Waterbeach and the alluvium of the Old West River (and present Ouse) north-north-east of Cottenham (fig. 1), varies in character considerably in its five-mile course. Most of it has been degraded to a field ditch, and over some stretches cultivation has overrun the banks on either side and encroached upon the bed, but the dyke survives reasonably intact at Waterbeach and on the site of the present excavations at Bullock's Haste and Setchel Fen.

The examination of the prehistoric hill-fort known as Hollingbury was undertaken during March and April, 1931, by the Brighton and Hove Archaeological Club, with the permission of the Brighton Corporation and with the sanction of Mr. B. H. Maclaren, Superintendent of Parks and Gardens. We also have to express our great gratitude to those Societies and individuals whose generous contributions made the undertaking possible, and to others who rendered valuable help by their own labour.

The results of excavations carried out in 1972 and 1974 and the records of builders' and service trenches over nine years, combined with reports of past discoveries, make up a body of evidence for Kingsholm's use first as a pre-Flavian military site (or sites) of more than one phase covering c. 50 acres, then as a late or sub-Roman cemetery and later as the site of the late Saxon and later aula regis. The archaeological evidence for the palace is supported by an account of the documentary evidence for its history and topography. Specialist studies are offered of the classification and iconography of the decorated bronze cheekpiece of pre-Flavian cavalry helmet and of a furnished inhumation probably of the early fifth century A.D.