The 5th Century Chedworth Mosaic

It is evening. The sun casts long shadows and the man lingers a moment beside the shrine, watching the life-spring of his home trickle into the octagonal basin. He turns and walks the length of the corridor, up the stone steps, along the passage and finds his wife in the dining room.

The octagonal basin within the Nymphaeum shrine at Chedworth Roman Villa, Gloucestershire

‘Did you hear the news ?

‘Yes…we are governed by selfish incompetents. How on earth will we be able to manage here in the future?

‘I think we have enough for now…but it’s the children I worry about.’

By the end of the 4th century, Chedworth Roman Villa was at its best. A fine home for a wealthy family.

Whatever became of it? How did such a place become a ruin?

Archaeologists investigating the Romans generally depend on an abundance of finds for dating. Coins, pottery and all the other lovely things that the Empire enabled merchants to import from around the Roman world.

This world gradually fell apart. The tap was turned towards off in the 5th century. Some coins enter Britain in the early 400s and there was some pottery production. A few shipments of exotic wine made it as far as Gloucestershire.

There is a piece from a 6th century Palestinian amphora unearthed at Chedworth. Could there still be people living at Chedworth able to afford such things?

Whatever…. finds are few and generally the events of the 5th-7th centuries are tough for archaeologists to unravel.

A challenge then: particularly as the upper archaeological levels were stripped away and discarded in 1864, when the Villa was discovered, and then rapidly excavated down to its mosaics.

So…come and visit Room 27 with me in Chedworth’s North Range. It is 2017 and I am excavating the trench in the north-east corner.

I must warn you….I am going to talk stratigraphy at you… I have to I’m afraid, you won’t believe me otherwise. Archaeologists live and breath stratigraphy. How can things be proved without it?

So, I am kneeling in my trench: In front of me is the north wall of the room and immediately to my right, beyond the east wall, are a line of archaeologists in Room 28.

Looking across the wall from Room 27 watching the Room 28 mosaic being uncovered.

They are working backwards from the north wall carefully uncovering and cleaning a mosaic. They are finding a row of circles containing three and four petalled flowers alternating with woven knots and linked by woven strands of guilloche in red, white and blue tesserae.

Their room is more exciting than mine. I only have a thin band of a plain crushed tile and mortar floor (opus signinum) surviving against the north wall. Below this is the floor’s mortar bedding and below this the floor’s mortared limestone hardcore which survives across my trench.

Looking east within Room 27 the surviving piece of opus signinum floor is against the north wall on the left The hardcore it was built on is to the right of the ranging pole with its 0.2m long red and white divisions. I have taken out a section of it to reveal the dark soil against the east wall at the top of the picture. This east wall runs up to the north wall but is not bonded to it. A later insert.

I told you I’d talk stratigraphy. This is the important sequence of events, most recent at the top and the earliest at the bottom…. and what you extract from each of the distinctive layers is important to enable you to unpick the past…. century by century.

You know…. if you went on holiday and forgot to cancel the papers… they’d pile up below the letter box. The earliest would be at the bottom.

So.. the hardcore which supported the crushed clay tile and mortar floor. Well, it covered the foundation trench for the wall between Rooms 27 and 28.

We have come to the point in the sequence of events when the wall was constructed.

The builders dug the trench, placed the foundation stones for the wall in the trench and then shovelled soil and rubble..and anything lying about… back into the trench, packing it against the newly built wall.

Looking down on my trench. The inserted east wall on the right and the north wall it was built against it at the top of the picture. At this stage, I have left the strip of opus signinum floor against the north wall on its thin bedding layer of mortar. This lay above a gravel and mortar hardcore layer about 5cm thick and this covered the dark loamy soil filling the foundation trench. In this soil I found a fragment of black pottery some charcoal twig fragments and two small fragements of animal bone. This foundation trench cut through the creamy yellow limestone fragments set in clay which was the natural bedrock. This can be seen on the left hand side of the trench. When I excavated a small section against the north wall, it could be seen that the foundation trench of the east wall also cut the foundation trench of the north wall.

The technical archaeological term for this is ‘the foundation trench filling’ and anything found in this helps date the construction of the wall. My boring opus signinum floor and my neighbours’ exciting mosaic floor must be later than the wall because my floor is built over the foundation trench filling. You cannot lay out a mosaic design to fit a room until the walls are built. That makes sense doesn’t it? Hold onto that thought.

In August 2017, I looked carefully for finds from the soil of this precious ‘filling’, a coin would be excellent in such a context…but no, all I got were fine strands of charcoal twig, two small fragments of animal bone (traces from a meal I suppose) and a single black piece of pottery.

Pete’s trench in the south-east corner of Room 27. The walls need deeper foundations here because the natural valley slope, that Chedworth is terraced into, drops away to the south and to create a level floor surface material needs to be brought in. Notice the completely different designs of the wall footings. On the right hand side of the picture; the south wall, like the north, is of regular courses of nicely faced stone; whereas the east wall, on the left hand side, has a cap of roughly dressed stone on top of a heap of rubble with bits of tile in . It is clear that this is later than the south wall because it is built as a straight joint against it.

This east wall foundation had cut the foundation trench of the north wall and the stones of the east wall abutted the north wall…. What I’m saying is that the east wall was not part of the original construction of the North Range.

Pete had dug another trench at the other end of Room 27 in the south-east corner. The soil was much deeper there. The building had been constructed into a valley slope. It was cut into the bedrock on the north but the foundations needed to be much deeper to the south and to make a floor, lots of soil needed to be brought in to create a level surface. A wedge of soil above the sloping bedrock deepest against the south wall.

The style of construction of the south wall looked much the same as the north wall and the east wall butted up against it and was clearly a later construction. There were sherds of pottery and charcoal in the foundation trench of the south wall….

So the contemporary north and south walls were continuous through the space which became Rooms 27 & 28. When our new wall was inserted it became the east wall of 27.. which of course…was the west wall of 28.

Drone photo (copyright Mike Calnan) of the east edge of Room 27 and mosaic room 28. The mosaic pattern is lost in the centre and in the bottom left quadrant of the room are the remains of two later hearths with traces of burning around them. Notice how the surviving mosaic runs up against the wall top left and how the whole mosaic pattern has been made to fit this room. Beyond wall on the far left, is my trench (top left) in the north-east corner of Room 27 (just above the rolled up white geotextile matting). This is where the radiocarbon dates were taken..from the foundation trench on the left side of the dividing wall. Pete’s south-east Room 27 trench is bottom left on this picture.

We soon found out that the mosaic in Room 28 had been worn away in the centre of the room. There had been a workshop here. Two fireplaces or hearths had been made out of reused bits of villa and built into the burnt eroded centre of the room.

At the end of the 2017 excavation, we thought we had the answer. In the 4th century, a new wall had been built in the North Range to create two new rooms. A plain floor was constructed in 27 and a new mosaic created for 28. By the 5th-6th century, Chedworth was falling apart. The economy had crashed and the once rich owners had abandoned Its beautiful mosaic rooms…..it was not being looked after.

Instead, 28 had been turned into a workshop…..or so we thought.

Looking again at the finds that Nancy and her team had recorded and catalogued from the 2017 excavation at a picnic table within the mansion house courtyard.

Join me now at a wooden picnic table in the summer sunshine of 2019. We are in the stable-yard of a National Trust mansion house where Nancy and her volunteers have finished processing the Chedworth finds.

The charcoal strands from the foundation trenches of 27’s south and east walls, along with the ash from 28’s late hearths will be sent for radiocarbon dating. The pottery from the south wall foundation trench looks good for the 2nd century. A flanged bowl with acute cross-hatch decoration is particularly appropriate. Jane the pottery specialist will check it out…I wonder what she will make of my black bit from the east wall trench filling.

Pottery finds from the Room 27’s south wall foundation trench filling. The sherd bottom right is part of a ‘flanged’ bowl which comes from the kilns around Poole Harbour in Dorset. The flange is flat and angled from the rim of the bowl. the cross-hatch decoration inscribed on the side is acutely angled and decorates a broad area of the side of the bowl…. I tell you this because it is typical of 2nd century Black Burnished pottery produced in Dorset at that time. It backs up the radiocarbon date.

The radiocarbon dates come back first. The charcoal from the south wall matches the pottery …mid to late 2nd century. We have had similar dates from other parts of the early North Range.

Then I see the date from the charcoal found in the foundation trench of the inserted east wall…AD424-544 at 95.4% probability !! That’s not even tentatively into the 5th century…it might even be 6th. I contact the mosaic specialist.

‘Have you come across any British 5th century mosaics?’

‘No, the economy collapsed, coinage and pottery production disappeared. Would a mosaic business survive? Would a villa have the confidence and wealth to redesign the house and lay new floors? Anyway… what about the 5th – 6th century workshops in Room 28’

‘The radiocarbon dates say they’re 12th to 14th century. Medieval rather than Dark Age’

‘The dates must be wrong. The Room 28 mosaic is one of the later more poorly constructed mosaics. There are lots of mistakes in the design but I would need a lot more proof before I could believe that it was made in the 5th century.’

I ask around.There are hints.of late mosaic floors but radiocarbon dating within British Roman villas has not been common.

I need confirmation. Nancy gets the larger of the two pieces of animal bone found in the foundation trench and Mark, Chedworth’s manager, agrees the funding to send it for a second radiocarbon date. It could be just a stray piece knocking around the site from an earlier period…but it’s worth a try. The result will take several months to process.

Then the pottery report comes back from the specialist. The fragment of black pottery from the trench turns out to be Late Roman Shelly Ware. It dates from after AD 360…it could be much later but nobody knows when production stopped for this ceramic type…anyway it confirms that our inserted wall was at least a latest Roman construction.

We waited…and waited… and eventually our second radiocarbon date was ready….

Not as clear cut as the charcoal date but the bone date definitely supports it. In the 95.4% probability band the date is split AD 337- AD432 (87%) and AD491 – AD531 (8.4%).

The radiocarbon date is measured from when the animal died or the wood was cut and burnt. It then becomes debris to lie around and then fall into the building trench for a new wall…..against which the mosaic floor was later built.

We have at least a 5th century mosaic at Chedworth…could even be 6th century but that would be pushing things a bit. There are two other mosaics in the North Range with Room 28’s late style. The corridor mosaic (Room 33) is particularly quirky.

The mosaic of the corridor of the North Range. A similar level of skill to the Room 28 mosaic. This is phase 3 of mosaic design at Chedworth…OK but full of errors and mosaic making past its 4th century best. This one could also be 5th century but there is no surviving evidence to date it.

Anyway, time to go back to the worried owners of Chedworth Roman Villa…. having their conversation in the dining room…one evening at the end of the 4th century.

‘Don’t worry. The kids will be alright. Cirencester (Corinium) and the rich villas surrounding Roman Britain’s second largest town will keep the Romanised flame flickering for a little while after the Empire’s soldiers sail away’ …

but……perhaps the great great grandchildren should watch out.

In a very rare historical survival from the early 6th century, the British monk Gildas writes of corrupt government and warns of trouble brewing …but according to the Anglo Saxon Chronicle, the Saxons didn’t defeat the Romanised British kings of Bath, Gloucester and Cirencester until the Battle of Dyrham in AD 577.

Plenty of time for new 5th century floors to be made in West Country villas. Let’s find some more.

Smashing news about the Chedworth Villa roman glass

The glass when first found

At last we can tell the story of what the specialists found out about the little piece of glass Pete found in 2017 at Chedworth Villa. You may already know its story as it hit the press and social media yesterday, 22nd July.

Not long after excavation I had taken it to Professor Jenny Price, a roman glass expert. She was very intrigued by it and thought she had seen something resembling it in the past, but from the Middle East. Features of the glass indicated that the technique used to make it was also unusual, differing from that used to make glass with similar decoration. The glass had a distinctive profile showing that it came from a long bottle with an oval shape and a sharp taper at the end. So away it went with her, so she could study it and consult many experts around the world.

The glass fragment showing loops of yellow and white

Eighteen months later Jenny was able to report back to us that it probably came from an area around the Black Sea. She had found a reference to another similar glass flask that had been excavated from a burial in Chersonesus in Crimea. It turned out to be part of a fish-shaped flask with the fish’s open mouth forming the aperture of the vessel, and probably held perfume or an unguent of some kind. 

It was the first piece of this kind of glass ever to be found in Britain, a very rare find.

Jenny also found a very similar fish-shaped flask that had been restored from many pieces, at the Corning Museum of Glass in New York. By comparing the two examples, she concluded the Chedworth piece came from near the ‘tail’ of the fish bottle

An archaeological drawing of the place were the piece of glass fits on the fish flask

Sadly, Jenny passed away a few months ago. Earlier, Pete, who found the glass, had a chance to go and see her and talk about the fish. He said he could see she was enchanted by it, and we are so pleased she had a chance to solve this puzzle and knew how excited we all were by it. It is a very special find.

To have found that it is the only one of its type so far discovered in Roman Britain adds to our knowledge of the importance of Chedworth Roman Villa.

That such an exotic thing was brought from so far away seems to underline that the occupants were in touch with the furthest regions of the Roman Empire and wanted to show off that influence and connections.

Illustration of what it may have looked like by archaeological illustrator Maggie Foottit

This little gem of glass and the illustrations can now be seen on display at Chedworth Villa in Gloucestershire.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The only other example of such a fish-shaped Roman bottle comes from a 2^nd-century burial in Crimea. 

The technique used to make the Chedworth bottle was unusual, with decoration laid on top of the blue-green surface to create ‘scales’ in loops of white and yellow. It was more common to incorporate different colours into the body of the vessel itself.  

“at the University of York who was helping with a dig to understand more about the north wing of the villa. 

Peter said: “When it appeared, the first wipe of the surface showed the colour and it quickly became apparent it was something special. Excavating anything at Chedworth and knowing that you are the first person to gaze upon it for at least 1,800 years is a feeling that never tires, the memory of recovering this piece of glass certainly will not. 

“Recovering such a unique find is incredibly humbling, it will no doubt prove a talking point for years to come. I am delighted that it will be displayed at the villa, enabling visitors and future generations to marvel at its beauty.”

Nancy Grace concluded: “This find shows there is still more for Chedworth to tell us about Roman life in this corner of Gloucestershire.” 

The fragment is going on display at the villa as part of the Festival of Archaeology (until 28 July) and will remain on display throughout summer.

 

A summary: Chedworth 2018

The soil is back in place and the dust has settled. The North Range corridor and grand reception room mosaics now lie 10-15cm deep.

Who knows when they will be uncovered again but thanks to the help of so many ..we have been able to make an excellent record ….into the future they can be seen as fine images and videos ….while the originals lie protected from the weather and erosion under the ground.

We had glimpsed bits of these mosaics in 2013, 2014 & 2016.  Before that, in 2000, Cotswold Archaeology had uncovered an area and Roger Goodburn revealed other sections in 1990.

We thought that everything had been uncovered by James Farrer in the 1860s.. but this year, we revealed sections of mosaic, particularly along the south side of the reception hall, which were still covered by late Roman building debris..mainly roof tiles and rubble. Simon identified a coin we found here as belonging to Theodosius I (AD 379-395), one of the last Roman emperors to circulate coins in Britain.

This rubble was not a pristine collapse of debris, left where it had fallen after the villa roof fell in. It was a remnant..picked over for goodies perhaps in the 6th-10th centuries. However, we have identified nothing later than the Theodosian coin in this stuff so far.

By the close of the excavation, we had uncovered sections of mosaic covering an area over 30m long and 6m wide. At times, it seemed, we had taken on something over-large ..but the weather, although very hot, helped us work together to achieve the hoped for result. More survived under the tarmac and grass than we suspected.

As we reburied them… we wondered what world the mosaics would be exposed to when eventually uncovered again.

Last year, we excavated the mosaic in Room 28. It was perhaps used as a summer dining room…so lets imagine and go for a stroll with the owner… after a meal taken here in the late 4th century.

We walk from the room and enter the 3m wide corridor with its hopscotch pattern of decorated squares, each a different design. We progress west as far as a chequerboard mosaic doormat in front of a broad stone threshold.

Perhaps servants are here to open the double doors for us and we step into the great reception room. It stretches before us now.. long and broad and high.. decorated with brightly coloured panels of painted wall plaster. The floor is beautiful .. we know it now. Intricate grouped geometric designs  bordered by 3 bands of alternating white and red tesserae with a broader white band around the edge of the room.

Half-way along, on the south, is a stepped? external entrance into the courtyard. Although the archaeology was badly damaged here, lines of dressed stones suggest a doorway …and it would be expected.

We still stand in the corridor doorway and directly in front of us at the other end of the room are the kerbstones which mark the entrance to the colonnade leading to the West Range of the villa and the flight of steps which lead to the baths.

Jutting into the courtyard at the south-west corner of the reception hall is the ornate square water feature which we excavated in 2014. Another revelation of the grandeur of this place.

To the right of this, the red stripe border turns west at right angles to mark the position of a foundation (utilising an earlier wall line), a secure foundation for a heavy imposing decorative feature, built against the centre of the room’s west wall. We can imagine an important fixed feature. Perhaps the statue of a god, an ancestor or emperor. From here, leading north, a flight of steps carries us into…the owner’s office. A place of discussion, business and command. This is Room 24, where, in 2014, we found the evidence of the raised pillar hypocaust.

This year, the fragment of carved stone, Nancy found, is thought to come from an ornate stone side table which is evidence for the furniture which once graced this room. We can place this with our exotic eastern mediterranean marble fragment found near the centre of this room in 2014.

Towards the east end of this north wall would have been another door. This time into Room 25 but an entrance less imposing. It did not need steps to enter because Room 25 has a channeled hypocaust .. so the floor was built at the same level as the reception room. The evidence for this doorway is a concentration of erosion, the mosaic floor worn away by 5th to 6th century footfall.. repaired with only mortar and clay at a time when the Romano-British economy had fallen apart and the mosaicists had ceased to trade.

The steps and statue focus on Room 24 ….as the centre of power.

Steve has identified an unexpected change in the central mosaic pattern design and perhaps this pointed to the position of the doorway into the courtyard….but it may just be a mistake.

Of course.. I am spinning a yarn. It is good to have a story and I am giving you my best truth based on an interpretation of the evidence.

A dodgy drawing of my imagined view from the north range corridor through the reception hall towards the colonnade and the west range. The line of kerb stone here suggest a broad open entrance and perhaps, at this point there were once folding shutters rather than doors.. to act as a screen in the colder weather. A splash of blue on the left indicates the water feature. I have picked up the mistake in the central panels of the mosaic and drawn a central doorway to the courtyard on the left. Steps have been created up to room 24 and no steps for the suspected doorway to Room 25.  I have put a statue on a plinth to explain the kink in the red stripe border and decided that the staircase to the baths was a single flight accessed from the colonnade. Also two side tables are shown as interpreted by Anthony from the carved fragment Nancy found this year.

There were four other trenches.

Two were to pick up the line of the outer west boundary wall of the villa. We found this wall, made of chunky blocks of stone bonded to the south Nymphaeum wall. Even in the drought the Nymphaeum spring water still trickled into its pool. The wall’s junction with the Nymphaeum shows that it has been largely recreated in the 1860s. There is a straight joint and then the ashlar gives way to irregular blocks of stone. Different phases of construction but not enough time to fully understand the sequence properly.

Where the villa west boundary wall joins the Nymphaeum (scale 20cm divisions)

Peter and I projected the wall line 12m to the south and excavated another trench. Although there was a spread of rubble here, nothing but a patch of mortar indicated that the wall survived this far south.

The second trench to locate the boundary wall. Just rubble this far south. Peter stands where the alignment of this wall joins the Nymphaeum

The third trench was in raised baths Room 21 on the west side of the reception room. This was dug to find the wall dividing the early tepidarium bath with the room we found under the east side of Room 21 in 2015-2016. Amy and Fay found a line of blocks of stone on the proposed alignment but they were loose and we did not have the time in the end to go deep enough to prove the theory.

The trench to locate the earlier tepidarium east wall. Richmond interpreted it in his 1960s rebuild where the vertical ranging rod stands. His work cut away the south (top in photo) edge of the archaeology. Displaced blocks of stone on this alignment suggest that it might survive at a deeper level.

The last trench was a revisit and expansion of one excavated in 2016. This was to date three walls. Firstly, the south wall face of the North Range Corridor and Reception Hall. Secondly, the buttress which supports this wall on the south side where the wide doorway leads from the corridor into the reception hall. Thirdly, the east wall of the gallery which divides the inner and outer courtyards of the villa.

I am particularly interested in finding new evidence for the beginning and end of the villa and this trench it seems contains evidence of an earlier phase.

At the end of the 2016 season we found a square flagstone and the top of a heap of yellow mortar and rubble which contained 2nd century evidence. This year we confirmed that the coins in the darker soil, above the yellow building rubble dated to the late 3rd century. Nothing 4th century: which is unexpected because we were sure that both the buttress and the corridor wall had been built towards the end of the 4th century.

I found a cutting against the corridor wall filled with a dark grey silt which had been dug through the deep mortary building rubble. This contained two worn undateable coins. At first it seemed that this was a foundation trench for the corridor wall but it didn’t work archaeologically… The trench cut the rubble.. the rubble was heaped up against the buttress foundation …and the buttress foundation abutted the corridor wall. You see what I mean ? …It creates a time warp. You can’t build a wall before its buttress.

My present story is that it is a later trench cut perhaps to take away a flagstone, a neighbour to the one we found wedged between the buttress and the corridor wall. There may once have been a line of flagstones against the corridor wall here.

The yellow rubble layer was deep and interesting. Full of blue and red painted plaster debris and occasional sherds of pottery including a fragment of samian and the rims of two 2nd century black burnished ware jars. It had been heaped over a water tank beneath a stone spout. If this rubble is late 2nd century then the buttress and corridor wall must be earlier…

…Though of course finds in dumps of rubble can be displaced and redeposited. Cross reference everything and assume nothing.

The tank had an outlet hole that drained into a ditch. The tank and debris sat on a spread of grey limestone slates spread across to create a rough floor surface. On the last day, Stephanie and her daughter found an oyster shell, charcoal and occasional scraps of pottery and tesserae here and Carol and Nick found a deposit of animal bones under the buttress foundation.

The rough stone floor surface continuing under the stone tank and beneath this the foundation of the East Gallery wall. The foundation for the later stone buttress for the corridor is on the right edge of the photograph.

I made one last small incision against the gallery wall and found beneath the stone slab floor and the mortar layer below it, a foundation trench filling and the base of the gallery wall.

So the sequence is clear…first the gallery, then the corridor then the buttress. We will take our samples for radiocarbon dates and Nancy will send the finds for analysis. They will help us tell a better story.. something a little closer to the truth

And so we say goodbye to our excavations at Chedworth Roman Villa. Thank you so much to all the staff, specialist experts and volunteers who have helped us since 2010. Particularly of course the property staff and volunteers at Chedworth. You are all wonderful.

And looking back…Guy, Aparna, Catherine and James…Harry, Kate, David and Mike. Fay and Carol our fine supervisors of course. The core team Peter and Amy, younger Nick and Nick the wise and Stephanie… who discovered archaeology this year and  Rob our longest volunteer (since 1986!) who in this last evening photo…conveniently stands where the statue might once have been.

Thank you !

 

 

Day 19 – The end for now ….

The core team left to right Stephanie, Fay, Rob, Amy, Carol, Martin, Pete and Me

Well, we reached the last day and had a few last jobs to do as well as back-filling the trenches. Martin had recording, drawings and the odd extra bit of digging to do, to answer a few questions in the buttress trench. Fay and Amy had a little more digging in the bath house trench to find the wall, and the rest of us had finds and tools to pack up.

We have to record everything by scale drawing and photography, as once its dug out we cannot go back to check any details.

In the buttress trench Martin has been finding lots of painted plaster including different blues and greens. Then he found this large piece, amazing colours and design.

In the buttress trench Martin has found lots of lovely painted plaster, mainly blues, but then he found this stunning piece

A close-up of the plaster

One job we had to do was to put in a little extension to find out how big the water tank was, it turned out to be quite small, but perfectly formed. We also found the outlet hole!

The extent of the tank

 

The tank  had slipped forward, note the crack in the lower right

The outlet hole

The last trench to be filled in was the buttress trench, we protected the tank with geotextile, then left messages for future archaeologists to find, in an empty bottle of fizz we had for Amy’s 21st birthday.

For future archaeologists to find

Nearly there

Also on the last day we had another birthday to celebrate – Pete’s. So it was a double celebration and a big cake provided by lovely Sue, who had been doing all the finds washing for us, thank you Sue.

When you only have a grubby wooden knife a trowel has to do

As we put back the last turf we had our last visitor, a frog that had managed to survive the back filling and the heat!

Our last visitor

As they say ‘that’s all folks’ for daily up dates from the dig, but Martin will do a summing up of the dig and we will post updates of the finds when we have their stories back from the specialists. So keep checking in.

All that’s left to say is a massive thank you to all our volunteers who came to dig with us and especially those who helped with the mammoth back filling task. We hope you all enjoyed your experience. Thank you to all our blog followers, and its been lovely to meet many of you on-site, your kind words helped to keep us going through the hottest parts of the day.

Until next time………

 

Day Thirteen – Feathered friends

The end is near and we still have a bit of excavation to do, luckily the mosaics are cropping up again just when we thought  they had ended.

Amy uncovering the new section of mosaic

We finally removed the last of Sir Ian Richmond’s representation of the earlier villa walls, his pink concrete! Behind this was the real roman wall and a line of mosaic still in place balanced on the edge.

The burnt, earlier villa wall with a line of tesserae still in place

Max, Steve, and  Stephanie carried on the big clean up in the relenting heat. Jill and Amy each had an area of mosaic to uncover and Fay was banished to a small trench up next to the bathhouse. Guy and William took on the challenge to keep going down through the roman rubble layer in the buttress trench near the museum, where they found lots of painted wall plaster and some intriguing stonework (more about it tomorrow)

Steve and Max cleaning the corridor mosaic

 

William and Guy in the buttress trench

Now to our feathered friends, during this dry spell we have been providing a small buffet for the birds, here are our clever friends who have taken advantage of the insects and worms we have disturbed. The star is Bob the Pheasant 🙂

Lovely pair of Pied wagtails foraging on the spoil heap

The scruffy Robin is very brave finding food right next to us as we dig

Bob with Amy at lunch time, sharing a biscuit

A portrait of Bob

 

Day 12 – Rogues gallery

Here as promised are the ‘small finds’ we have found over the last few days 🙂

 

A coin, worn but enough remains for a coin expert to identify

The reverse of the coin with a bit more detail.

Another coin, very clear, you can read the lettering. Probably IMP TETRICUS PF AVG, so probably Tetricus I rather than Tetricus II, who ruled the separatist Gallic empire from AD271-274 Thanks Pete for the identification

The reverse of the Tetricus coin

And the next coin, very worn on the obverse,

The reverse has a little bit of detail, hopefully enough for an identification

The last of the coins and this one is worn and probably beyond identification

Not a coin but a lovely piece of roman glass, part of the rim of a bowl maybe.

Last but not least is a hob nail, from a roman shoe, it was found between tow loose tesserae in the corridor mosaic. Avery fine example of its type!

 

Day Eleven – Hasten, Hasten fetch a basin

Quick, quick the cats been sick, hasten, hasten fetch a basin, too late, too late the carpets in an awful state

The  old rhyme my Mum used to say when I was a child in Yorkshire, was brought to mind by a find today. After the find of the carved stone we checked every large stone we had found in the roman rubble layer, but found no more. Then we turned to the stone still in the layer and yet to be dug up, there was a large curved one which when we got to it also looked to have a hollow section. It looked quite crudely  carved, and was badly fractured. We finally managed to remove it and found it was a kind of stone basin.

The carved stone next to Carol still in situ

The stone ‘basin’

Today we started on the big clean up, David and Eirian came to help us today, and did a fantastic job, cleaning the mosaics and the bottoms of the walls. They checked areas that still needed a little bit more soil removing, and sponged the mosaics. Thank you both, great work.

David next to his lovely shining mosaic, the colours really sing

We also had a visit from our  line manager, and team – curators, registrar, collections and most important our lovely business support. They set too as part of the big clean up and each did a section. More great work 🙂

Our Team

Our Team

our team

Tomorrow I will update you all on the rest of the special finds we have so far, so come back to find out about the small things 🙂

Day Ten – Stone, nails and Caleb’s knife

I arrived late after my day off, due to a baby gull rescue just as I set off from home, the joys of coastal living 🙂 to find the gang working very hard de-turfing and then clearing the back fill from 2014.

After morning break it was all back into the main trench, with Amy and Fay banished to the corridor and Rob to the buttress trench. Les, Carol A, Pete, Jackie, Janette, Nick, Carol L and me lined up to take the last areas of the top soil and then the rubble from the collapse of the roman building away.

All in a line, going, going gone

Amongst the usual finds of pottery, tile, bone and tesserae we found lots of nails, and by plotting them we realized they were all the same kind and  in a line. Could this have been were a beam had fallen and rotted away leaving only the nails? We need to have a specialist check what type of nail they are and what they would have been used for.

I once again had chance to do a bit of digging myself and after removing many stone roof tile fragments I came across a chunky stone that looked like it had been shaped on two sides for using in a wall. As I turned it over I noticed some notches, then they looked like a flower and maybe another smoothed of part below. I cautiously showed it round and the conclusion was it was definitely a carved!

A happy me with the stone

close-up of the carving

Another roman coin popped out Carols second, again quite worn, it will have to wait for a coin specialist to have a look before we can get its date. Janette had a good find while cleaning back round the steps from the bath house, maybe we can reunite it with its owner, Caleb.

Caleb has lost his penknife! I wonder what hi is peeling his apples with now!

Packing up at the end of the day we found an artwork entitled  ‘archaeologists detritus’

Archaeologists detritus

Day Seven – Old friends

Fay, Carol and Amy returned refreshed after a day off, to be greeted by a no go area as we had a drone flying over the site to record the mosaics and parch marks, pale areas in the grass due to the drought conditions were the grass is over a hard surface, like a wall or compacted area like a path way, the site looked fantastic on the monitor, we await the results.

Here’s a picture from the top of the wall, not as detailed as the drone 🙂

guilloche Knots and swastika blocks

We have only done the first clean back to reveal the mosaics, we still need to go back over them cleaning again and then wet sponge them, the colours and patterns will then stand out.

Today we were joined by a volunteer and friend Jen and Allan a colleague of many years. Also we had a visit from another friend Stefan and his Dad, and as he had done finds washing last time we met, we found a good bit for him to have a go at digging. Stefan in 2016 pot washing and two years later digging, great job Stefan.

Pictured above another great tile and pot washer was Stefan who hopefully will be back to do more

Stefan excavating mosaic with expert guidance from Amy and Jen

Over on the other side of the trench a cry from Carol turns all heads, she had found her first roman coin, a very small and worn one but there is a figure on the reverse so the coin experts will be able to tell us a date.

Carol and her coin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day Six – Glass half full

After the excitement of the coin yesterday the six of us knuckled down to the tasks in hand. Rob headed back to his trench next to the Buckeye tree wondering if he would have another lucky day. Martin spent the first part of the day adding to his measured plan of the site. He took of his boots so he could tread carefully around the mosaic.

Martin working on his measured plan of the site note no boots just socks – respect the mosaic 🙂

As for the rest of us – well the mosaic may have disappeared on one side but it reappeared on the wall side! and carried on and on into the next panel.

Amy on the left, with Stephanie and Pete working on the mosaic on the right

Amy and Martin, found that the potential untouched roman layer with roof tile, bone, pot and shell had also run out and was replaced by a very fine sandy soil that was probably Victorian, Martin found a broken, black glass, faceted button of a typical late Victorian type on the edge of this layer. We had an exciting moment when Amy found mosaic in her area that looked as if it went under the roof tile layer, it was in very good condition. So after we record the spread of this layer we will remove it and fingers crossed we will find more!

Amy’s mosaic

Once again late in the day Rob calls me and heads over with something in his hand, he has found some vessel glass, what looks like part of the foot piece of a roman drinking vessel! Top trench and top volunteer (32 years working with us)

Rob with his glass

At the end of the day I had a headache so as Doctor Quintus was at the Villa I went to see if he could help, but after seeing his tools and what he suggested I though just a long drink of water was the best cure!

Some of the Doctors tools

 

The good Doctor

Last but not least Chris, Stephanie’s husband who could not join us digging due to harvesting, managed to get some time to become the ice cream man and  arrived with a bag of lollies to keep us going for the next few days! As he had done such a good deed I let him take over my bit as I had to help Martin do some levels, on the plans he had drawn and check on Rob. I think he was happy 🙂

Thanks Chris you can visit anytime

Chris, Stephanie and Pete doing a great job uncovering more mosaic