Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T03:13:42.607Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Tilestones into Whetstones in Seven Steps: the Brownstones, Pennant Sandstone and Stonesfield Slate at Silchester (Calleva Atrebatum), North Hampshire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 May 2019

J.R.L. Allen
J.R.L. Allen*
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Roughly two-thirds of an assemblage of 156 whetstones from three collections representing two late Roman sites at Silchester can be assigned geologically to the Brownstones (Devonian), Pennant sandstone (Carboniferous) or Stonesfield Slate (Jurassic), imported from the west and north into the town as roof-tiles. The latter were put to further, secondary use as whetstones, some small and portable but others large and laid flat and kept stationary. The whetstones are polished through use, typically on both faces, and a high proportion carry grooves. On some the grooves are short and fine and could represent the sharpening of such items as pins, needles, meat skewers, styli and engraving tools. These grooves are typically found on whetstones from Insula IX, where artisanal and, at best, ‘light-industrial’ activities are recorded. At the forum-basilica, by contrast, the whetstones are more substantial and typically show large grooves of two kinds that point to the shaping and finishing in considerable numbers of iron objects such as knives, cleavers, swords and even possibly ladles. The industrial activity at this site had a distinctly ‘heavier’ quality. The biography of these whetstones — objects seemingly simple and unpretentious — was complex, wherever they were found.

Keywords

Silchesterwhetstonesstone roof-tilesmanufacture of iron objectsbiography of things
Type
Shorter Contributions
Information
Britannia , Volume 50 , November 2019 , pp. 321 - 330
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2019. Published by The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Allen, J.R.L. 2014: Whetstones from Roman Silchester (Calleva Atrebatum), North Hampshire. Character, Manufacture, Provenance and Use, BAR British Series 597, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Allen, J.R. 2018: ‘The whetstones from Roman Silchester at the Reading Museum: the Victorian-Edwardian excavations’, Hampshire Studies 73, 156–68Google Scholar
Arkell, W.J. 1947: The Geology of Oxford, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Ashton, M. 1980: ‘The stratigraphy of the Lincolnshire Limestone Formation (Bajocian) in Lincolnshire and Rutland (Leicestershire)’, Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association 91, 205–34Google Scholar
Aston, M. 1974: Stonesfield Slate, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Atkinson, D. 1942: ‘The finds in the east portico gutter’, Report on Excavations at Wroxeter (the Roman City of Uriconium in the County of Salop (1923–1927), Birmingham, 128–30Google Scholar
Boon, G.C. 1974: The Roman Town of Calleva, LondonGoogle Scholar
Cave, R. 1977: Geology of the Malmesbury District, Memoirs of the British Geological Survey, LondonGoogle Scholar
Evans, J. 1894: ‘On some tools and other articles formed of iron found at Silchester in the year 1890’, Archaeologia 54.1, 139–56Google Scholar
Fox, G.E., and St John Hope, W.H. 1890: ‘Excavations at the site of the Roman city of Silchester’, Archaeologia 52.2, 733–58Google Scholar
Fox, G.E., and St John Hope, W.H. 1901: ‘Excavations on the site of the Roman city at Silchester, Hants, in 1900’, Archaeologia 57.2, 229–51Google Scholar
Fulford, M.G., and Timby, J. 2000: Late Iron Age and Roman Silchester, Excavations on the Site of the Forum-Basilica 1977, 1980–86, Britannia Monograph 15, LondonGoogle Scholar
Fulford, M., Clarke, A., and Eckardt, H. 2006: Life and Labour in Late Roman Silchester: Excavations in Insula IX since 1997, Britannia Monograph 22, LondonGoogle Scholar
Gosden, C., and Marshall, Y. 1999: ‘The cultural biography of objects’, World Archaeology 31.2, 169–78Google Scholar
Green, G.W., and Welch, F.B.A. 1965: Geology of the Country Around Wells and Cheddar, Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, LondonGoogle Scholar
Heard, A., and Davies, R. 1924: ‘The Old Red Sandstone of the Cardiff district’, Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society 80, 489–515Google Scholar
Kellaway, G.A., and Welch, F.B.A. 1993: Geology of the Bristol District. Memoir for Special Sheet 16,360 (England and Wales), Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, LondonGoogle Scholar
Kopytoff, I. 1986: ‘The cultural biography of things: commodification as process’, in Appadurai, E. (ed.), Commodities in Cultural Perspective, Cambridge, 64–91Google Scholar
Manning, W.H. 1976: Catalogue of Romano-British Ironwork in the Museum of Antiquities, Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle upon TyneGoogle Scholar
Manning, W.H. 1985: Catalogue of Romano-British Iron Tools, Fittings and Weapons in the British Museum, LondonGoogle Scholar
Manning, W.H. 1995: ‘Honestones’, in Manning, W.H. with Price, J. and Webster, J., Report on the Excavations at Usk 1965–1976. The Roman Small Finds, Cardiff, 157–263Google Scholar
Pick, M.C. 1964: ‘The stratigraphy and sedimentary features of the Old Red Sandstone, Portishead coastal section, northeast Somerset’, Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association 75, 199–21Google Scholar
Richards, D. 2000: ‘The ironwork’, in Fulford and Timby 2000, 360–79Google Scholar
Robertson, T. 1927: The Geology of the South Wales Coalfield. Part 2. Abergavenny (2nd edn), Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, LondonGoogle Scholar
Squirrell, H.S., and Downing, R.A. 1969: Geology of the South Wales Coalfield. Part 1. Newport (3rd edn), Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, LondonGoogle Scholar
Strahan, A., and Cantrill, T.C. 1912: The Geology of the South Wales Coalfield. Part 3. The Country Around Cardiff (2nd edn), Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, LondonGoogle Scholar
Thiébaux, A., Goemaere, E., and Herbosch, A. 2012: ‘Un atelier gallo-romain de pierres à aiguiser découvert à Buizingen (Hal, Belgique): reconstitution des étapes de fabrication et détermination des origines géologiques et géographiques du materiaux’, Review du Nord 94, 143–58Google Scholar
Thiébaux, A., Feller, M., Duchêne, B., and Goemaere, E. 2016: ‘Roman whetstone production in northern Gaul (Belgium and northern France)’, Journal of Lithic Studies 3, 1–15Google Scholar
Thomas, L.P. 1974: ‘The Westphalian (Coal Measures) in South Wales’, in Owen, T.R. (ed.), The Upper Palaeozoic and Post-Palaeozoic Rocks of Wales, Cardiff, 133–60Google Scholar
Trotter, F.M. 1942: The Forest of Dean Coal and Iron-ore Field, Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, LondonGoogle Scholar
Wallis, F.S. 1927: ‘The Old Red Sandstone of the Bristol district’, Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society 83, 760–87Google Scholar
Welch, F.B.A., and Trotter, F.M. 1961: The Geology of the Country around Monmouth and Chepstow, Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, LondonGoogle Scholar
Wooders, J. 2000: ‘The stone artefacts’, in Fulford and Timby 2000, 385–90Google Scholar