In the spring of 1850, a remarkably well-preserved male bog-body was found on Grewelthorpe Moor, near Ripon, North Yorkshire. The body was clad in brightly-coloured woollen garments and a pair of leather ‘sandals’, the style of which induced two late nineteenth-century writers to conclude that it was that of an ‘ancient Roman’ (see below). More recently, Tinsley recognized the importance of this find and suggested that the body may have been a ‘Roman soldier’. In the absence of adequate supporting evidence, one of the present authors (J.P.W.) previously expressed skepticism concerning the body's supposed Roman date. Two woollen fragments which survive in the Yorkshire Museum in themselves provide insufficient dating evidence. Fortunately, the surviving shoe-sole is of a distinctive Roman-British regional type. This article presents the dating evidence, reappraises the clothing in the light of its confirmed Romano-British origin, and re-assesses the circumstances behind the death in the light of comparable finds.

The invaluable contribution of air photography to the study of Roman military remains in Scotland over the last five decades is already well known. From its earliest tentative beginnings in the hands of O. G. S. Crawford to the highly structured programmes directed by Professor J. K. St. Joseph and D. R. Wilson on behalf of the Cambridge University Committee for Aerial Photography, aerial reconnaissance has proved itself a stimulatingly fruitful tool – whether by its totally unexpected additions to the sum of knowledge or through its ability to find the one piece of the jigsaw-puzzle that turns surmise into certainty. In this process the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland has also had a part to play, although, for much of the time it has worked, perforce, within a more restricted frame of reference, scrutinizing the vast collections of RAF vertical photographs during its preparation of County Inventories, or in the course of the Survey of Marginal Lands in 1951–8. Nevertheless, the discovery of the forts at Bishopton, Broomholm, Easter Happrew, and Oakwood, as well as the fortlet at Lurg Moor and the watch-tower at Beattock Summit, mainly as a result of such scrutiny by K. A. Steer and R. W. Feachem, indicates that even this more passive form of involvement can be handsomely rewarding.

In Britain air-photography has proved to be one of the more important tools of the historian and archaeologist working in the Roman period. The principal results of aerial reconnaissance since 1945 have been described in a notable series of papers by the writer's colleague, Professor J. K. St. Joseph, published in the Journal of Roman Studies. Most of the discoveries reported had been made on flights sponsored by the Committee for Aerial Photography of the University of Cambridge. A fuller treatment of the photography of walled towns has also appeared; the present paper likewise is devoted to a single class of site in greater detail than is feasible in a periodic general review. Some of the sites to be described are hitherto unpublished; others, previously noted in brief, now receive a more extended commentary.

The rectangular multivallate enclosure at TQ 6535 8135 has been sampled by excavation and described previously. Further excavation by Essex County Council was undertaken for the Department of the Environment when road construction threatened total destruction. Evidence for settlement was found, which began in the early or middle Iron Age, continued until the late Roman period and was also present in the early Saxon period, FIG. I shows the major features that have been excavated or denned; FIGS. 2 and 3 indicate substantive features during each period.

The fourth-century Rudston ‘aquatic’ mosaic is likely to show Oceanus at the centre rather than Neptune, and the dominant position of the head on the floor suggests that the inspiration for it derives, however remotely, from North African models where the scene was common. This is made more plausible by the fact that African influence, as is well known, is also detectable on the famous Venus mosaic by the same mosaicist in an adjacent room in the same building. At Brading, the central figure in the main reception room – a half-naked man with stick, globe and sundial – is identified, not just as a generic ‘philosopher’ type, but specifically as the third-century B.C. astronomer and poet, Aratus, on the basis of comparanda on mosaics, tapestry, silverware and in an illustrated manuscript of his work, the Phaenomena. It is further suggested that the key to reading the damaged larger part of the Brading floor above Aratus might be a Latin translation of his work, possibly that by Avienus c. A.D. 350, if the mosaic is indeed approximately of that date rather than earlier, and that the subject-matter of the panels alluded to constellations described in the poem. A very tentative attempt is made to identify what might have been depicted in the panels, on the basis of the mythology behind the constellations as explained in Latin adaptations of the poem: those of Perseus and Andromeda are illustrated in the surviving panel, and possibly Phaethon and Eridanus, Hercules and the serpent in the Garden of the Hesperides, and conceivably Pegasus at a spring were shown in the other three. It is also suggested that these unusual scenes might have been based on an illustrated manuscript of the work in the possession of the dominus at Brading. Be that as it may, the mosaic does appear to provide further evidence of the depth of classical learning displayed by at least some members of the Romano-British rural élite in the fourth century A.D.