Excavations by MoLAS at 30 Gresham Street and 12 Arthur Street in the City of London in 2001 have led to a complete reassessment of the provision of Roman London’s water supply. Four massive first- and second-century wells contained remains of two types of mechanical water-lifting machines or bucket-chain systems. The discoveries allowed identification of a similar bucket-chain from the Cheapside Roman baths, found 50 years earlier by Ivor Noël Hume of the Guildhall Museum. Archaeological and engineering analysis has revealed the water-lifting capacity of the machines, which could have supplied a significant proportion of the town’s population with clean water.

Excavations in Insulae II, III and XIII in the southern half of Verulamium demonstrated the absence of occupation prior to the late first century and the relatively late development of the street grid in this area. This forced a re-evaluation of the date of the 1955 ditch, suggesting it was not dug until the Flavian period. The excavations also demonstrated that Watling Street had never bisected Insula XIII on the south-eastern side of the Forum-Basilica, thus negating a major argument for the presence of a Claudian fort under the centre of the later town. A restricted excavation in the northern corner of Insula XIII revealed evidence for the location of the town’s baths, while excavation in Insula XIII revealed a long sequence of industrial and domestic occupation stretching from the late first to early fifth centuries. Evidence for continued occupation into the fifth century or beyond was recovered from Insula II, and to a lesser extent, in Insula XIII.

This paper presents preliminary research into the social and economic impact of early urban settlement in Britain, focusing on the case-study area of Late Iron Age to Roman Essex. Through fresh analysis of ceramic assemblages from Colchester and Heybridge, we describe hitherto unrecognised socio-cultural groupings and identities through subtle differences in the deposition of pottery in the generations before and after conquest. The concluding discussion concentrates on problems that we still have to address in describing the economic basis of early urban society in Britain.

Central to this paper is the meaning of the actions that lead to iron objects being found in archaeological contexts of later prehistoric and Roman date. It is argued that the placing of iron objects within the physical landscape reflects upon the changing nature of society at this time. In Iron Age studies, many deposits in rivers, bogs and in the pits, ditches and post-holes of settlements are now interpreted as ‘special’ material buried for significant reasons, through acts that are often called ‘structured deposition’. This approach has had a deep influence on the excavation and post-excavation of Iron Age settlements and is now coming to influence the study of the deposition of artefacts on Roman sites. This paper develops the idea that much of the later prehistoric and Roman ironwork found on settlements and elsewhere was deliberately deposited for what might loosely be called ‘ritual’ or ‘religious’ motives; for much of this period the proportion of the artefacts lost accidentally was possibly quite small. Artefacts in other materials also require comparable study, but, while work that integrates the examination of items made from different materials on individual sites is important, this paper focuses upon iron due to its potential significance as a highly symbolic medium.

In order to study the possibility that some samian (terra sigillata) vessels remained available and/or in circulation for quite some time, a review has been made of closed groups (especially grave-assemblages), as a useful starting point. This paper argues that it is reasonable to expect some complete first-century samian vessels to have survived into the second century; also that some second-century vessels had survived into the fourth century at least throughout Roman Britain.

An unusually complex fourth-century infant grave excavated in Baldock in 1988 produced a complete Dea Nutrix figurine. Whilst not uncommon as site finds, Deae Nutrices are less frequently encountered as grave gifts in Britain than in Gaul. The reasons for its inclusion as a grave gift are explored, as are wider questions of Romano-British burial practice in the town, the significance of Dea Nutrix as a deity, and the nature of funerary ritual. An assessment is also made of the status of the Roman town.

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.

This paper is concerned with the nature of the contacts between late Roman Britain and the seafaring peoples of the continental North Sea coast. Evidence for Germanic piracy during this period is extremely slight, with the consequence that notions about its character are poorly defined. However, this paper argues that there is a basic similarity between these barbarian attacks and those of the late eighth- and early ninth-century Vikings against England, Ireland and northern France. The Vikings are much better evidenced, both in terms of written sources and the archaeological record: this makes it possible to offer a model for the nature, scale and consequences of Germanic piracy in late Roman Britain.

Fascicules 7 and 8 of Roman Inscription of Britain II, dealing with samian and coarse pottery respectively, contain some 60 examples of graffiti associated with funerary contexts. Most graffiti are personal names and traditionally these were thought to record the names of the deceased. Analysis has revealed, however, that the names are more likely to be those of mourners or gift-givers. This is suggested by case-endings (graffiti that indicate possession are relatively few), the presence of multiple names in single graves, and the observation that many names were inscribed on ancillary vessels, rather than cinerary urns.

For the first time petrological and geochemical analysis of the Marcus Favonius Facilis legionary tombstone at Colchester (RIB 200) was undertaken to determine its geological source. The results show the material to be identical with samples obtained from the Middle Jurassic quarries at Norroy-lès-Pont-à-Mousson of Eastern France. Rather than quarrying what became the more accessible native freestone outcrop between Humberside and Dorset, stone-masons based at Claudian Colchester were instead relying upon established continental materials from the Rhineland provinces. In this short article, petrological analysis has also been used to establish a geological link between this tombstone and the material used for funerary monuments at the pre-invasion legionary base of Facilis (and of legio XX) at Neuss.

The form vilbiam has been long known from the earliest of the Bath curse tablets to have been discovered. It has usually, but with some reservations, been regarded as a female personal name. If so, then, this curse tablet (RIB 154) is the only one to record the theft of a person. It is suggested here that vilbia, rather than being a personal name, is the term for some form of sharp-pointed object. It is further argued that it may be of Celtic origin and may have a Celtic reflex in Middle Welsh gwlf.