It is always good to have items from Volunteers about their on-going work. Recently we had Bob Gann, Volunteer librarian writing about his research. Today, another item from Mary Crane about the very interesting Conversation Club.
The Club has been meeting once a month at Salisbury City Library while the building works progress at the museum.
This month the topic was the Romans. Katy England brought a ‘handling’ box full of genuinely Roman objects and some replicas. In the box some Samian ware depicting a bath house scene was much admired. In the scene, someone using a strigil could be seen, scraping cleansing oils off the skin (in lieu of soap). The replica strigil, also in the box was viewed with suspicion, being rather rough on the skin.
We discussed the making of pottery, what we knew about domestic life in Roman times, and how different their lives may have been to ours, yet also similar.
We also handled replica Roman shoes, sandal-like, they would not be particularly good in the rain, mud or snow. We saw a sistrum, a musical instrument and a manicure set which included a spoon-like ear scoop.
As usual, Katy has produced a set of questions to make us think.
It was, as always, a very enjoyable session. But it will be good to be based back in the museum. Carting (literally) heavy boxes to and from the Library is no joke!
“Just to let you know that the next talk in our series, Nigel Rothwell and Dr. Ed Peveler, Reinterpreting Roman Roads in the Chilterns; insights from lidar data, on Thursday 26th January, is now open for booking. This follows closely the similarly themed well attended successful talk this week by Dr. Chris Smart on Devon and Cornwall that will soon be available on our catch up YouTube channel. This talk, like all we promote, has no fee and is open to all, please pass the link on to any others who may be interested in this subject or RR’s in general.
Thornton-le-Street History Group are holding a talk by the renowned Prof. Richard Hingley, The Conquest of Central Britain and the Nature of the Main Roads on Thursday 19th January that sounds very relevant. You can book your place through Eventbrite.”
Description: Re-live the horrors and extent of damage to the City of London during the London Blitz in 1940-41. We will look at contemporary bomb damage maps and discover what was rescued, revealed, restored or even rebuilt after the war making a much more spacious city.
Virtual Tour – unbuilt buildings Monday 16 January 8pm
Keen on family history? Try some of the offerings from The S of G:
Society of Geneaologists
Saturday, 2 April – 10:30am
Hidden in the Newsprint – To be Recorded
Find out how to search newspapers and magazines and broaden your research horizons.
Mia Bennett offers an insight into the scope and range of information that you can find in newspapers. This talk is for family historians, local historians and anyone who wants to understand the context of life in Britain. Mia includes:
– Both the British Newspaper Archive and The Gazette;
– Hints and tips for getting more out of searching and finding useful articles within the papers.
A one-hour talk with Mia Bennett, cost £10.00/£6.50 SoG members
We can visit this exhibition by clicking on the link above. BUT only six days to go!
ROMANS: Edge of Empire (open from 9th October 2021 – 6th February 2022, at Perth Museum and Art Gallery) will explore what life was like for Roman and Celtic lives on the north-western edge of the vast Roman Empire. The story of global and local, of the interaction between Roman and Celtic-speaking peoples of north Britain.
Way back before Scotland was Scotland and Perthshire was Perthshire, the land belonged to Celtic tribes: the Caledonians, Maetae and later, the Picts. This is the story of what happened when these people met the might of the Roman Empire.
Go here to read HS2’s report on this remarkable excavation – 30 roundhouses and a road from the Iron Age and evidence of the settlement changing and developing into the Roman period.
Such settlements would not have been uncommon but it is unusual for one to be comprehensively excavated as has happened here. Many continue to be important towns today, with much of the archaeology still hidden under modern streets and buildings.
It is difficult to know, without any size having been given here, whether the shape of this Roman period ‘arm purse’ was intended to fit tightly to the contours of the upper arm, or dangle from the wrist or hand like a handbag. The ‘belly’ of this purse seems incommodiously large, and other examples (they are rare finds) suggest it was usually smaller. Perhaps the arm purse was for show – a bit of bling, and the larger the better. It showed how wealthy you were. If anyone has seen contemporary illustrative material (a statue, mosaic, etc) with an arm purse displayed, please let us know.
Many people in the Roman Empire never used coins, of course, but the army did. They were paid in coin. Even then, we would guess that most soldiers would carry a leather or cloth draw-string bag for most personal items, as would the locals.
We do know, from illustrative carving in stone and written description, that part of a soldier’s marching pack was a loculus (literal meaning in Latin: a small place) which was a satchel, reinforced with diagonal straps and with a triangular flap held closed, as a modern bag or purse might be, by a ring and mushroom shaped stud which held it.
These illustrations from Trajan’s column (completed AD 113 – the drawing is a 19th copy of part of it) come from a wonderful site:
I don’t know about the coffee, but the conversation was very good this morning (Volunteer Coffee and Conversation sessions). Alan Clarke applied his own engineering experience and expertise to some ancient Roman machinery and devices, and encouraged us all to ponder the question of, amongst other things, ‘degrading technology’.
Alan started by pointing out that if machinery was made of wood (and this was sometimes the best material to use) it won’t have lasted well. This has sometimes made it difficult for archaeologists to understand how ancient technology worked.
He used the example of ancient Roman wagons. of which often only the metal fittings remain. When it has been possible to identify a complete ‘set’ of fittings, it has then been possible to see more or less exactly how the wagon would have looked, and worked, and recreate by filling in’ with the timber. Find enough of these ‘sets’ and we can learn even more.
Alan says that it has been shown that Roman wagons were a standard size, and that it is likely that the metal fittings were all made from ore from the same place (established by its chemical make-up). It suggests that the wagons were ‘mass produced’ (by Roman standards) in one manufactory, and ‘exported’ by virtue of the need to move material in them. “All roads lead to (and from) Rome” and so the wagons spread throughout the Empire. It suggests a ‘factory’ near Rome, but if so, it hasn’t yet been found.
This led to interesting discussion between Alan and the audience regarding modern practices in the production of cars. Someone suggested that perhaps the metal fittings were made in one place and exported to different parts of the Empire where the wood could be built round them, but there was general agreement that this would not be as efficient. And the Romans were nothing if not efficient.
This last photo is of a replica Roman stagecoach. The metal fittings (look closely) are copies of actual examples. More examples here:
The coach looks like it had primitive springing (the cabin is hung on leather straps) and contemporary writers report reclining seats (for long journeys into the night). They could cover more than fifty miles in ten hours.
The three separate illustrations suggest the ‘standard’ size and shape described by archaeologists.
The important difference between Roman wagons and ‘local’ ones was that they had a pivot for the front set of wheels, so that the wagon could easily be steered. Alan pointed out that this was technology not used again in Britain until the eighteenth century. That had the audience talking (very knowledgably) about how technology can degrade over time.
We lost a lot after the Roman period ended. The new settlers used wood for just about everything – building and household items, tools and machinery, though they were capable of exquisite jewellery and decorated swords, etc. In Britain, we appear even to have lost the ability, for hundreds of years, to make bricks. And as for central heating…..!
Some technology today, despite, or because of, its huge strides forward, is degrading again. What are we losing today, as we depend more and more on computers?
One member of the audience remarked that there were technologies within Roman glass making that we still can’t replicate today and we were ‘introduced’ to these people:
www.theglassmakers.co.uk Do look them up for fabulous replica Roman glass (the bits that can be done!) and more. All of us this morning decided a trip would be worthwhile when we next can…..
GK Chesterton wrote that poem, but Dorset poet Thomas Hardy wrote about the Roman roads he saw and knew about in his county. Roman roads tended to be straight.
Thomas Hardy Locations: The Roman Road. It is the old road that leads north from Upwey up the steep hillside to the Ridgeway , the ancient tracks that run along the crest of the local coastal hills. It was replaced by and runs parallel to the A357 Dorchester to Weymouth road which is itself being replaced by the Weymouth relief road. The track was the Roman road to Durnovaria (Dorchester) two thousand years ago. A phantom legion of Roman soldiers is said to appear in times of national crisis and march along this stretch of track at Ridgeway Hill, between Dorchester and Weymouth.
The Roman Road runs straight and bare As the pale parting-line in hair Across the heath. And thoughtful men Contrast its days of Now and Then, And delve, and measure, and compare;
Visioning on the vacant air Helmed legionaries, who proudly rear The Eagle, as they pace again The Roman Road.
But no tall brass-helmed legionnaire Haunts it for me. Uprises there A mother’s form upon my ken, Guiding my infant steps, as when We walked that ancient thoroughfare, The Roman Road.
From Wikimedia Commons: Nigel Mykura / Thomas Hardy Locations: The Roman Road / CC BY-SA 2.
Mary Crane’s quiz on the Romans was short, sweet, and surprisingly difficult formost of us! Here are the answers:
Wife of Prasutagus: Boudicca
The longer mile: The modern one at 5280 feet, while a Roman mile was 4860 feet
Discovered in Colchester in 2004: A ‘circus’, for racing chariots, etc
A Retiarius had a net and trident as his weapons
Saturn appears to have been a god of just about anything reprehensible but his mythological reign was depicted as a Golden Age of plenty and peace. Amongst other, less worthy, things, he was god of agriculture. Some experts consider that the Cerne Abbas Giant may be a representation of Hercules, but I think it could be Saturn, gazing over the Dorset fields….
Alan Clarke’s mystery photograph last week was of Honeycombe Chine, Boscombe with the pier in the distance. Not easy unless you know the Bournemouth area! He estimates it to have been taken c 1920s.
There will be another mystery photo soon. Meanwhile we have another article from Alan this week.