The excavations of 1904, with which the present report deals, were in some respects the most difficult which the Committee has had to conduct at Caerwent. In the first place, the large house which appeared rather unexpectedly on the west side of the road leading to the newly discovered south gate had been reconstructed several times in its different parts, the periods not beiitg always clearly distinguishable, and in the second place, owing to the considerable depth at which a great part of the house lay, the excavations were so protracted that both time and money began to fail, the latter owing to a most disappointing falling off in the number of our subscribers, so that, had it not been for the timely help of two Fellows of the Society, Lord Tredegar and Lord Llangattock, it would have been necessary to begin the filling in before many important problems had been solved; and even as it is, we are not able to say that the exploration has been, in certain points of detail, as complete as we could have wished.

I have the honour of exhibiting to the Society of Antiquaries, through Mr. Joshua James Foster, of Dorchester, some objects of bronze, iron, glass, and earthenware lately found together in Belbury Camp, near Higher Lychett, Poole, Dorset.

Of all the drinking vessels in use from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries, none were so common and so much prized as those known to us as mazers. They occur in numerous wills and inventories under various names, such as ciphi or cuppae de mazero or de murra, mazeri, ciphi murrei, mazerei, hanaps de maser, and later as murrae and mazers, etc., on the derivations of which much valuable matter has been written. But, under whatever name it appears, it is quite clear that the same vessel is meant, viz. a drinking bowl turned out of some kind of wood, but by preference of maple, and especially the spotted or speckled variety which we call bird's-eye maple.

On January 4th of this year (1906) when visiting some works that had been started for the relief of the unemployed at Hadleigh Road, Ipswich, I was fortunate enough to discover that the high land which was being levelled was the site of an Anglo-Saxon cemetery. The slope overlooks the river Gipping, and is on the west side of the town, near the railway. (See plan, Fig. 1.) Already over 150 men had been at work for two months, little dreaming that treasures of antiquity were being thrown away at nearly every stroke of the pick. Five skeletons had been found, but these had been pronounced quite recent, and were re-interred without further notice being taken of them.

The Manor and Soke of Rothley, in the county of Leicester, compose a franchise described in Domesday as having been held by the Confessor, and being held, as ancient demesne, by the Conqueror at the date of the Survey. After one or two temporary alienations, manor and soke were granted by Henry III., in the twenty-ninth year of his reign, to the order of the Temple, when they were at once erected into a preceptory.

In the former Communication which I had the pleasure to make to you respecting the repairs now in progress at Westminster Hall, I stated that on removing the surface of the masonry of the walls, many very manifest indications presented themselves of the original Norman work. The subsequent progress of the restoration continued to bring to light similar indications, sufficient indeed to render it no difficult task to form a pretty distinct conception of the appearance of the walls as built during the Norman period, and I hope in a short time to have the pleasure of putting into your hands a drawing of such an imaginary, but well founded, restoration, which, perhaps, you may think deserving the inspection of the Society.

The priory church of Deerhurst is situated on the northern boundary of Gloucestershire, two miles south of Tewkesbury. It stands within 250 yds. of the river Severn, on low land still liable to flood. The village is part of a strip of country bounded on the west by the Severn and on the east by a road, both of which afford direct communication between the cities of Gloucester and Worcester. Nearer the river was an ancient trackway between these places, passing through Deerhurst and Tewkesbury. Malvern Chase extended from the right bank of the river to the hills beyond. Deerhurst lay in that division of the kingdom of Mercia known as the land of the Hwiccas, which included a considerable tract of country now forming part of the counties of Worcester, Gloucester, and Warwick.

The part played by William Stukeley in the evolution of English garden design has aroused much interest in recent years, though little research has been carried out into his gardening and architectural activities while resident in Stamford, Lincolnshire, from 1730 to 1747. This was an important period in Stukeley's life and the influence of his archaeological work at Stonehenge and Avebury and his ideas on religion and the early British druids are clearly reflected in his garden designs. Previous work on this period in Stukeley's life has been hampered by imprecision over the various gardens or houses occupied in Stamford by Stukeley. The gardens and his residences are here identified and a mystery concerning his Barn Hill house that has puzzled architectural historians for five decades is solved: what was thought to be a remodelling of the house is here shown to be a scheme for a triumphal arch over the road immediately outside his house.

This paper describes the results of the surveys carried out along Ras Muari (Cape Monze, Karachi, Sindh) by the Italian Archaeological Mission in Lower Sindh and Las Bela in 2013 and 2014. The surveyed area coincides with part of the mythical land of the Ichthyophagoi, mentioned by the classical chroniclers. Many archaeological sites, mainly scatters and spots of fragmented marine and mangrove shells, were discovered and AMS dated along the northern part of the cape facing the Hab River mouth. The surveys have shown that fisher and shell gatherer communities temporarily settled in different parts of the headland. They began to exploit the sea resources during the Neolithic. However, the most important discovery consists of a unique fishers’ settlement with rectangular stone-walled structures located on a limestone terrace near Sonari (SNR-1), the first ever found along the northern coast of the Arabian Sea. The AMS dates show that it was settled mainly during the first half of the third millennium cal bc when the Indus Civilisation flourished in the area. Considering the importance of the discovery, all the material culture remains from the Sonari sites have been described and analysed in detail and, whenever possible, framed into the different phases of environmental changes and human adaptation to the coastal environment that have been interpreted thanks to a good series of AMS dates from marine and mangrove shells.

The origins of the Herefordshire School of Sculpture have traditionally been associated with Shobdon Priory, although both Leominster Priory and Kilpeck Church have also been suggested. This paper proposes that the origins of the Herefordshire School should be sought elsewhere, most probably in Hereford Cathedral. Recent studies tend to date the activity of the Herefordshire School earlier than was previously supposed, but it is here argued that these principal monuments of the School are actually later in date than the revisions suggest and that the Herefordshire School of Sculpture was active for around thirty years, into the early 1160s. The importance of lay patronage is confirmed, but scope for the influence of churchmen in the promotion of the School is also proposed. Some of the schemes adopted may have served to convey messages intended to help the church protect itself and its possessions in the turbulent times of the Anarchy.

The potters’ wheel was reintroduced to England in the late ninth century. It spread rapidly throughout eastern England, yet little is known about the mechanisms that facilitated its dissemination and success. This article presents the results of multidisciplinary research into the diffusion of this technology. Focusing on pottery production in late Saxon Newark, Nottinghamshire, an industry thought to have been founded by a potter(s) who had relocated from Torksey, Lincolnshire, this study offers a rare opportunity to examine the movements and craft practices of an individual artisan(s). By considering their manufacturing choices in the context of pottery distribution networks and the contemporary political, social and economic climate, it is demonstrated that the supply of pottery to Newark from regional production centres was restricted, creating a gap in the market and providing an incentive for a potter to relocate, encouraging the spread of the potters’ wheel throughout eastern England.

A frieze of mounted knights, over 15m long, dominates the nave of the church of All Saints, Claverley, Shropshire. It is part of an extensive mural scheme from the first quarter of the thirteenth century. For the first time the status of Claverley as a Royal Chapel is recognized and the royal and crusading character of the imagery is discussed. The emperors Constantine and Heraclius are identified as part of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross subject on the north wall, and the Holy Cross is suggested as the unifying theme, pre-dating the Florentine mural cycle by Agnolo Gaddi by some 170 years. Claverley is also shown to have the only medieval mural of Roland, hero of the Chanson de Roland, to survive in situ. The historical background of the early years of Henry iii is examined and the possible role of Ranulf de Blondeville, earl of Chester, in commissioning the frieze is considered.

This paper considers the historical, topographical, and morphological characteristics of burial sites in south-western Britain between ad 400 and 1000, looking for evidence of patterns of Christian development across the region. The study concludes that there is no one simple set of characteristics that exclusively identifies sites of this period. It demonstrates the very considerable complexity of the long, slow cultural shift that turned a pagan society into a Christian one, and it draws attention to the range of place names, morphologies, dedications and traditions that mark the surviving evidence.

The excavations upon this portion of the site have been in progress since 1901, but it was not till 1903 that they were carried so far as to enable the Committee to submit a report upon them.

The land which has been under examination there is the property of Lord Tredegar, F.S.A., and the greater part of the cost of the work has been defrayed by him. The Committee desire to take this opportunity of expressing their gratitude, and their appreciation of the great help which he has given towards the exploration of Caerwent. There is no doubt that much of the support which they have received is due to the example which he has set.

Iona was a major European intellectual and artistic centre during the seventh to ninth centuries, with outstanding illustrated manuscripts, sculpture and religious writings produced there, despite its apparently peripheral location ‘at the ends of the earth’. Recent theological discourse has emphasised the leading role of Iona, and particularly its ninth abbot, Adomnán, in developing the metaphor of the earthly monastery as a mirror of heavenly Jerusalem, allowing us to suggest a new appreciation of the innovative monastic layout at Iona and its influence on other monasteries in northern Britain. The authors contend that the unique paved roadway and the schematic layout of the early church, shrine chapel and free-standing crosses were intended to evoke Jerusalem, and that the journey to the sacred heart of the site mirrored a pilgrim’s journey to the tomb of Christ. The key to this transformative understanding is Charles Thomas’s 1956–63 campaign of excavations on Iona, which this article is publishing for the first time. These excavations were influential in the history of early Christian archaeology in Britain as they helped to form many of Thomas’s ideas, later expressed in a series of influential books. They also revealed important new information on the layout and function of the monastic complex, and produced some unique metalwork and glass artefacts that considerably expand our knowledge of activities on the site. This article collates this new information with a re-assessment of the evidence from a large series of other excavations on Iona, and relates the results to recent explorations at other Insular monastic sites.

This paper describes a group of wooden objects (a trough, ladder, mallet and other pieces) found in 1817 in a salt mine in north-eastern Austria-Hungary, now Ukraine, which have recently come to light in the Hungarian Central Mining Museum in Sopron. It presents new radiocarbon dates indicating that the objects date to the Bronze Age, except for one that belongs to the early medieval period. Their function is briefly considered in the context of recent excavation and survey work in Romania, and specifically the remarkable discoveries from Băile Figa near Beclean, northern Transylvania, where several similar troughs and other objects have been found. Taken together, the finds shed light on the scale of salt exploitation in central and eastern Europe in prehistoric times.

With the consent of the Duchy of Cornwall (the owners of the site) and H.M. Office of Works (its guardians), the Society of Antiquaries and the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society have undertaken a limited exploration of Maiden Castle, Dorset, over a period of three years. The first season's work was carried out in 1934 under the direction of Mrs. T. V. Wheeler and Lt.-Col. C. D. Drew, with the writer, and is here summarized.

The beaker here illustrated is new only in the sense that it is now for the first time accessible. It was discovered some years before 1901 by a farm boy in a stone cist in the yard of Llancaiach Isaf, an old farm-house in the parish of Gellygaer, 12 miles north of Cardiff (O.S. 6 inch, Glamorgan XIX. S.E.). The cover-slab of the cist then, and until the present year, was level with the paving of the yard, and no traces of a mound survived. Within the cist were found the beaker, a skull, and, it is said, some ‘ornaments’, of which nothing is now known. The skull was seen by a local medical man, but was then, by order of the landowners, replaced with the beaker in the cist. From that time, according to the (then) tenant of the farm, the burial remained undisturbed until 25th June 1901, when a local resident, Mr. George Seaborne, who has greatly assisted my inquiries, reopened the cist and drew attention to it in the Western Mail newspaper (19th July 1901). The contents, however, were not removed, and the precise locality of the burial remained the close secret of one or two persons until the present year, when cist, beaker, and skull were removed to the National Museum of Wales.