Roman Villas in Britain (A series of interactive talks)

Good evening everyone, my name’s Ben, I’m from a charity called Strange Old Things, which is a Mobile Museum. Those of you following this thread on FB, please stick with it there's lots more new material here, or scroll down to the first picture. It’s a fully functional museum collection, except its homeless and lives in a tent. This allows the museum to travel to pretty much anywhere, and we take it out to schools, local community events,  and now here to you. It’s not-for-profit and we rely entirely on donations. Our favourite donations are not cash, but strange old things. We get a lot of people donating mystery or collectable items to the museum, which helps keep the collection fresh, and takes us in new directions. The museum covers the whole span of Britain’s glorious history, from the stone age to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This week has been all about Roman Britain, since our series of talks on life in Roman Britain kicked off in July with an interactive lecture on life in a Roman villa. So we’re going to be looking at that here and we’re going to do it the way this museum does everything; through interaction with our period artefacts. These items are all genuine Roman pieces In 'real life' this is totally interactive, that’s the whole idea behind a mobile museum. Archaeology in Roman Britain is not about studying the past, but studying what is left of the past. As in many periods of history, it is the rich and powerful whose stories have survived, the ordinary men and women, farmers labourers, soldiers, are largely lost to us. 

The place we’re talking about today is a Roman Villa, a large country house inhabited by a local dignitary in around the 4^th Century AD. He would have lived there with his wife and children, employed a number of craftsmen and possessed a number of slaves. The land under his control was extensive, and much of it was farmed for profit. These were important people, but they were not the rulers of the land. Local administrators were appointed by the governor, who was selected by the emperor. It was a job, albeit an important one. The men who lived in these villas were making a life for themselves here.

Built of stone and cement, the roof would have been tiled. Tiles are a fairly common find, they were mass produced and sourced either locally or across the channel in Gaul. They look very much like modern tiles in fact the design hasn’t changed since the ancient Greeks. You can tell Roman tiles apart, they tend to be a bit bigger than modern examples, and they show the wear and tear of time. If you feel the surface its pitted and worn. We have many examples, most come from Carleon in Wales, which was once the Roman settlement of Isca, one of the largest garrison towns.

Villas were often co-located with garrisons, and the army barracks gradually evolve into farming buildings as the military moves on. When the Romans wanted to extend their influence somewhere, they would send in traders and diplomats first, to spread the material benefits of empire and sign alliances, then the military would follow and build camps, then land owners and settlers would follow that and turn the abandoned garrison buildings into homesteads.

Food, like most other commodities would have been plentiful most of the time. There is evidence of some villa compounds falling on hard times, but by and large they prospered and items like these would have been an everyday sight. There are two types of pottery that you tend to find in this area, Samian ware is the first. It’s quintessentially Roman, produced in Roman kilns mainly in Gaul and was the same all over the empire. It was always this colour and came in a variety of standards of quality.

This is a fragments from a small dish found in Carthage in North Africa. It’s a great example of what we call ‘Fineware’, which would have been used on special occasions for parties and to impress guests. 

Something a bit different is this fineware dish sherd which was found in Grateley, where there was a fortification from the 2^nd century onwards, evidently the area followed the usual pattern of becoming a villa complex. Romans were obsessed with image, far worse than we are today. The road to political power was one that every aristocratic Roman was expected to follow, and they spend vast sums of money on it. Showing off was an important part of building a reputation. Gaining high office was an expensive affair, and you wouldn’t get sponsors if people didn’t think you had money to throw around. Romans never made anything just because it looked pretty, it always had a purpose. We’ll see that fact reflected in all the items here as we work through them. 

This is something quite different. It’s called Greyware, and again it’s relatively common in this part of the world. All these examples are local Wiltshire finds. Greyware was not Roman, but British, it was produced locally and independently of Roman kilns. It was adopted by the Romans on their arrival here, to fill the constant demand for storage and transportation vessels. The empire consumed pot amphorae by the ton, there is a hillock in Central Rome over 200ft high that is composed entirely of discarded Olive Oil amphorae. This is courseware, which differs from fineware in that it was used for cooking and serving, not for show. The decoration is quite subtle but it’s not overly fancy. If you hold them in your palms, you can see how large these containers would have been. A lot of Roman pottery was glazed. While this looks very attractive, again the purpose is a practical one. Glazed pot is much easier to clean, so it’s a lot more hygienic.

So what do these fragments tell us? You can actually tell a lot about a site from the size of the fragments you recover. Larger fragments like these have usually been broken by accident or over time, they tell the story of abandonment rather than violence. Rome knew it’s days in Britain were numbered in the 4^th Century, it was too difficult to fortify and it wasn’t regarded as enough of a priority to defend. So when they left, it was done relatively orderly and their immediate successors the Saxons really just followed them and occupied the settlements they abandoned. Compare that with some of our tiny Mediterranean fragments, which are typical of the type recovered from some of the islands, and there is a clear difference; i.e. they look like they’ve been to a Greek wedding. They are clearly smashed. We have fragments from Majorca, which was brutally sacked by Vandals in 4^th c AD, the original vandals of history were a nomadic race and who hated city dwellers. Other items are from Kurion which was destroyed by an earthquake, also in the 4^th c. The small fragments tell of drama, not decline. Britain’s fate was typically more sedate and understated, but no less interesting.

So what was Pottery like before the Romans arrived? Well, largely rubbish I’m afraid. 

This is an example of, probably late iron age pottery, hand decorated. Because Iron age communities lived in isolation there was never the mass produced fineware of Roman culture. But, as I look at this item, I actually prefer it to the Roman pieces. As you hold this, and look at the decorations, you can easily imagine someone with a wet clay bowl, and a stick, making a random pattern like this. And it was just to make it look more attractive. So what we have here is probably Iron Age fineware from a very ordinary family. But it looks Roman doesn’t it? It’s like a poor imitation. Well, it is. By the 3^rd and 2^nd C BC, Roman pottery was making its way to Britain, not necessarily fineware, but as containers for things like wine and olive oil which the empire traded for raw materials. Everyone knew what Rome was, and many people sought to imitate the empire at a local level in Britain. And of course, many more had an eye on the future, they knew Rome would eventually be on the doorstep, and they wanted to appear pro-Roman by adopting some if the culture, so they would be good allies.

Villas were a great place to see Roman technology at work, which was probably more important to them than their artistic work. It was, after all, technology that won wars, not pretty dishes. Roman engineering is rightly famed for its ingenuity, but only the wealthy could take full advantage. These tile fragments are sections of flutes that formed a central heating system for villas. They were arranged into square pipes that ran inside the walls and under the floor, terminating in an outhouse in which a large fire was lit. The resulting warm air was circulated through the piping, heating the house.

The tile on the left is from West Sussex, 4^th C. The scouring on the reverse of this fragment would have helped it stick to the wall. Traces of the original mortar can still be seen. The tile on the Right is from Dorset, 3^rd C. A maker’s mark can be seen on this section, which may have been an indication of how the tiles were to be put together once assembled on site. Explain. Now and then, if you get lucky, you can see a maker’s make of a known potter or painter. Some of these artists followed the rich settlers as they took land in the wake of the Roman invasion, and their marks can be seen at a number of sites. If you plot these sites on the map, you can tell where the individual was employed, so you can follow his career through the country. It’s one way of trying to piece together what was happening and when, there is still a lot of confusion about where the Romans were, and in what numbers. Villas can help us to work out the centres of activity in the country.

Terracotta mosaic floor tiles are another nice example, our examples are from c. AD 300 and were found in Norfolk. Mosaics are an instantly recognisable Roman thing. Again, they were a sign of wealth, and again they had a practical purpose. In the same way that glazed pot is easier to wash, mosaic floors are easier to keep clean, it discourages rats and the like. Not all mosaics were masterpieces. You can often use the quality of mosaics to track the highs and lows of a family’s fortunes. There’s a brilliant section in Silchester villa, which is a large geometric pattern, with dolphins at each corner, but the artist has got it wrong, so the bottom right dolphin is squished up next to the wall, looks more like a tadpole!

Another common sight in the Roman world were brooches. Very decorative, but again let’s not forget these were functional items. In fact, what you’re looking at here is the world’s first safety pin. It was used to fasten clothing together. Except of course, these are not the first. Civilisation in Britain did not begin with the Romans. 

This is an Iron Age brooch from Wiltshire. Its 3^rd C BC, so a few centuries before the Romans. The design is called La Tene, and was distinctively ‘Celtic’ not Roman. And is this not just as beautiful as anything the Romans were making? Let’s go forward to the Post Roman world, this is an Anglo Saxon Cross Potent brooch, again it’s distinctively Saxon, not Roman. So in terms of style and craft, it didn’t begin and end with Rome. Brooches are brilliant, because they reflect the styles of the time. Brooches from the 1^st Century are different to the 2^nd, which are different to the 3^rd, so you can use these finds to date the habitation of a villa. Jewellery was important to Romans, again as a symbol of wealth, and it wasn’t just the rich who were concerned, it was really every Roman citizen. The whole culture constantly re-enforced the idea that you should always seek to better yourself. So when ordinary Romans wore jewellery, they made sure it was of a design that others would appreciate. We have beads of semi-precious stones, coral, glass and bone. It’s the sort of everyday item that perhaps the wives of scholars or craftsmen would have worn, people who would have lived in or around the villa and served the lord of the manor. And just like today, there would have been fashions, so emeralds for example would have been in last year, but unfashionable this year.

Some of our more fragile items are glass. These are nice pieces. Amazing that they survive at all. These are the rims and handles of Glass containers, jugs or cups probably. An interesting aside, the Romans used cups like we do, but in Jewish tradition they used dishes to drink out of, called Graels. This is what the Jews originally meant when they talked about the Holy Grail, but the Romans mis-understood. So the holy grail is actually a Dish and not a cup. Anyway, Glass cups. They are not clear like modern glass. It’s a combination of different colours and some of these have been painted as well. Today, if you have coloured glass it’s a sign of wealth, a bit fancy for a special occasion or decoration. In Ancient Rome it was the opposite. Clear glass was not invented for 100s of years after coloured glass, and it was an expensive luxury. Coloured glass was much more common. Again, this is a message. Having these nice things was like having a sign up in your house saying ‘I’m rich, and important’.

One of my favourite items is an Intaglio (engraved gemstone) ring from Didcot, Oxfordshire. c. AD 1^st – 3^rd C. Jewellery was not restricted to women as it is today. Although I think more men wear jewellery today than women. Men wore rings, they wore necklaces, they wore brooches, and again these things were a sign of status and power. And there was nothing more manly than power in ancient Rome. And, once again, We see the Romans with a very pretty, but ultimately practical item. This ring would have been engraved with a mark to signify the owners seal, and probably it was used to mark letters or official documents. Most finds like this are found by metal detectors, or by field walkers. In parts of the UK there was so much Roman habitation that ploughs regularly drag things like this to the surface, and they can be picked up off the soil. Many of the pot sherds were found this way. It’s a very useful way of identifying an area that might have contained Roman settlements or buildings.

Our talks continue throughout August and September with a look at a 'Legionaries diary', the life and experiences of the Roman army told through the eyes of a single Legionary based in Britain during the 3rd C.