The third volume in this massive project to create the first complete corpus of the Roman mosaics of Britain covers the areas of Britain that were first to come under Roman control and where some of Britain's most impressive mosaics are to be found - in Colchester, Silchester, London and Verulamium, and in villas and palaces at Brading, Bignor, Fishbourne and Rockbourne. In their introduction to the volume, the authors trace the origins of mosaic-making in Britain, and the development of colour palettes and motifs, from the mainly black-and-white geometric designs of first-century Fishbourne Palace, reflecting contemporary Gaulish fashions, to the more elaborate polychrome designs of the third and fourth centuries, featuring figures from classical mythology, some of which (like Brading's Orpheus taming the animals with his music, or Lullingstone's Bellerophon slaying the Chimera) had been invested with new meaning as symbols of Christianity. They consider too the types of buildings with which mosaics are associated, the functions of mosaic-decorated rooms, the materials from which they are made, the impact of mosaic discoveries on early antiquaries and the pioneering mosaic paintings of artists such as Richard Smirke and Charles Stothard, published in Samuel Lysons' Reliquae Britanniae Romanae (1817). The catalogue follows the format of earlier volumes in providing an account of each mosaic's discovery and locating the mosaic within its building plan. Every mosaic is described, with significant parallels and major references, and illustrated with the authors' own paintings, reproductions of historic engravings and photographs, taken in situ wherever possible, before lifting or restoration. The result is an unrivalled scholarly resource for anyone interested in Roman art, craftsmanship, architecture and social life, which will shortly be complete with the publication of the fourth and final volume on Western Britain, including Wales.

A larger than usual selection of papers from the annual TRAC conference. Sessions included Supplying the Army, Imperial communication, The role of the deceased in Roman society, Military identities and Experiencing space and place in the Roman world.

This volume constitutes a work of fundamental importance for historians of the period. Part One analyzes the background, opinions, and historiography of each of the four writers, with particular emphasis on recovering from the fragments the original structure of their works. Part Two presents an annotated conspectus, based on close study of all relevant writings, ancient and modern. Reprint of the 1981 edition.

This report presents an overview of Roman urban development in London south of the Thames. The establishment of the Roman bridge and the first approach roads and landing places, made Southwark an ideal location for the development of facilities for the trans-shipment of goods between land and river. The wide range of data from 41 previously unpublished north Southwark sites provides the means for 'mapping' Roman activity in Southwark: the nature of the early settlement, changing patterns of land use and broader processes of social and economic change. Early land reclamation preceded the establishment of a thriving trade centre involved in the redistribution or marketing of locally processed and imported goods, with evidence of a concentration of buildings burnt in Boudican fire of AD 61 along the main road to the bridgehead. Increased land reclamation and construction of more masonry buildings in the 2nd century AD indicate further growth. By the 3rd century large stone buildings at ten of the sites reported suggest an administrative area housing official residences. After the mid 4th century the settlement contracted to the area immediately around the bridgehead with a cemetery on previously occupied land to the south.

The Biddenham Loop has been the scene of human activity from the Palaeolithic through to the present-day but the majority of the archaeological evidence spans the Neolithic to the early 4th century AD. Apart from two handaxes, probably brought up from deep within the gravel by recent quarrying, no evidence for Palaeolithic activity was recovered. Given that the Biddenham area once had a reputation as a prolific source of material of this date, its absence is explained by the developments relatively limited impact on the underlying gravel terrace. The report looks at each chronological phase individually, and gives a site narrative, with plans and section drawings as well as detailed structural, artefactual and ecofactual data, primarily by 'activity' type.

This volume, a collection of essays in honour of Harvey Sheldon, begins with a section on the chronology and cartography of Roman London. The second section examines the landscape and environment of Roman London and its hinterland, drawing from a variety of disciplines.The third part of the book examines themes which are more difficult to identify through the archaeological record, such as education, cults and attitudes to death and burial. In the fourth section of the volume, the rich material culture of Roman London is examined through a series of papers on artefacts, including brooches, inkwells and toilet implements.

This volume presents the results of a number of excavations undertaken in Cirencester in the last decade which have examined houses, shops, public buildings (including the forum), town defences and cemeteries. Excavations within insula IX found a previously unrecorded corridor mosaic, while work within the western cemetery has revealed interesting evidence for early Roman cremation ritual, along with later Roman inhumation burials. The publication of this volume marks the fiftieth anniversary of the formation of the Cirencester Excavation Committee, and an introductory essay charts the changing circumstances in which archaeology has been practiced in the town over the last fifty years.

The discovery of one of Roman Londons most significant buildings - its amphitheatre - underneath the medieval Guildhall resulted from major archaeological excavations which took place between 1985 and 1999 as part of the City of London Corporations ambitious programme of redevelopment at the Guildhall. The history of the Guildhall and its precinct from the 12th to the 20th centuries is the subject of a companion volume. This book describes the construction, development and disuse of the amphitheatre, from the 1st to 4th centuries AD. Constructed on relatively low ground in the north-west part of Londinium, the first amphitheatre was built in c AD 74 of timber. Evidence was recovered for the eastern entrance, arena palisade, bank for seating and associated drains. The amphitheatre was rebuilt shortly after AD 120, with masonry foundations and walls, associated with new timber stands. The evidence allows conjectural reconstruction and comparison with other British amphitheatres. Abandoned by the mid 4th century, the amphitheatre was largely demolished and sealed by dark earth. The arena may have survived as an oval depression until the area was reoccupied in the 11th century. Significant finds assemblages include an early 2nd-century dump of glass cullet, lead curses from the arena surface and samian pottery with gladiatorial motifs. The amphitheatres remains are preserved and displayed in the basement of the new Guildhall Art Gallery.

Excavations carried out from 1984-1985 at Ditches in Gloucestershire identified a large, late Iron Age enclosure which contained a remarkably early Roman villa. This long awaited excavation report reinterprets this evidence in the light of more recent studies of the late Iron Age-Roman transition. It extends our understanding of the Ditches-Bagendon-Cirencester oppida complex, and corroborates the latest thinking on the nature of Romanisation. New conceptions are challenging the significance of the Claudian invasion of AD 43, suggesting that Roman political influence in southern Britain was much more important than commonly thought decades before this. The Roman take-over was a long drawn-out process, which began especially with intimate links between Caesar and his successors and the dynasts they supported or implanted in Britain on the other. High status archaeological sites are central to these relations, including the so-called oppida , developed in southern Britain in the decades between Caesar's raids and the Claudian occupation. Ditches provides further corroborative evidence. Several phases of Romano-British building were uncovered, revealing an unusual sequence of development for a villa in the region and representing an exceptionally early villa beyond south-east England. Discoveries included a well-preserved cellar and a range of finds, including Gallo-Belgic wares, Iron Age coins, coin moulds, Venus figurines and brooches indicating high-status occupation. The form and date of the villa also provides evidence of connections between the late Iron Age elites and communities of southern England and Gaul. Further evidence suggests the villa was abandoned in the later second century AD, emphasising the unusual sequence of the site.

Substantial Roman remains were recognised in the area of Queen Victoria Street as early as 1841, by the antiquarian Charles Roach Smith who recorded 'a wall of extraordinary strength', incorporating fragments of sculpted and moulded stone and marble. A watching brief carried out in the 1960s and a series of excavations on adjacent sites had revealed two major phases of Roman monumental masonry, the latter forming part of a vast building complex extending for over 150m along the river frontage, linked to the construction of the 3rd-century riverside wall. The area remained peripheral to the Roman City until late in the 1st century, and subsequent development was influenced by its challenging topographic location; the ground sloped steeply to the edge of the Thames and spring lines made for frequently-flooded terrain, traversed by natural channels, a situation which was repeatedly to affect attempts to develop the area. Recent development of the Salvation Army Headquarters building provided an opportunity for Pre-Construct Archaeology to carry out a series of excavations, augmenting previous investigations in the area. These have significantly advanced our understanding of the dating and form of the earlier complex. Much-modified over time, the river frontage was flanked by substantial apses with ambulatories between and further buildings extending to the north, terraced into the hillside. Vast foundations, piling and terracing associated with the later complex testify to continued attempts to control the steeply sloping and unstable ground, whilst the sheer size of the culverts incorporated into the masonry demonstrates the need for serious drainage. The new buildings included at least two temples of classical form; but these may never have been finished. The redevelopment also provided a rare opportunity to examine a sequence of medieval road surfaces and buildings at the junction of Thames Street and Lambeth Hill, including evidence for the Great Fire of 1666, which scorched the road surface and destroyed buildings north of Thames Street.

Beneath the surface of Aardenburg, a small town in the south-western part of the Netherlands, lie the remains of a Roman settlement that is presumed to have been named Rodanum. Extensive archaeological excavations from the late 1950s to the late 1980s revealed that the settlement was similar in size or even larger than the modern town. Its centre was formed by a large castellum-type fortification wall that enclosed several large stone buildings. The settlement was connected to the sea by a natural watercourse that defined its economic and logistical importance in the region. Rodanum's military function was to secure the regional coast against attacks by Germanic tribes via the North Sea, which occurred around AD 175. It continued to be inhabited until the late third century or the beginning of the fourth century, after which the settlement was deserted until the early Middle Ages. The first part of this study provides an overview of Aardenburg during the Roman period, in which its economic and military functions within the region are explored. In particular, the military and civilian character of the town is discussed. The second part contains a study of the metal objects and aims to present significant additional information. This part concludes with a critical review of the current state of research at this site.

Most studies of Roman local administration focus on the formal structures of power: provincial laws, imperial edicts, urban institutions and magistracies. This book explores the interplay of formal politics with informal factors such as social prejudice, parochialism and personal rivalries in the cities of northwestern Asia Minor from the first to the fifth centuries AD. Through a detailed analysis of the municipal speeches and career of the philosopher-politician Dion Chrysostomos, we gain new insights into the petty conflicts and lofty ambitions of an ancient provincial small-town politician and those around him.

From 1997 to 2006 the Danebury Trust, under the direction of Barry Cunliffe, excavated seven sites on the chalk downland of eastern Hampshire to explore the rural settlement of the region in the Roman period. The project was designed to build upon our knowledge of the area following the excavation of the Iron Age hillfort of Danebury and of eight Iron Age settlements in the region. The results of the present project are published in two volumes. Volume 1 offers an overview of the programme together with a series of studies exploring the results in their wider contexts. Volume 2 is presented in seven separate parts each dealing with the results of one specific excavation. The sites covered include the Early Iron Age settlement of Flint Farm, the Early Iron Age and Roman site of Rowbury Farm and the Roman villa establishments at Houghton Down, Grateley South, Fullerton, Thruxton and Dunkirt Barn. Together the sites enliven our understanding of the development of the Iron Age and Roman rural landscape especially corn production and processing, the use of water power for milling, status and Romanness, ancestor cults, lineages and land-holding, and the social implications of the great aisled halls which dominated the Hampshire landscape. The volumes make a major contribution to our understanding of Iron Age and Roman Britain.

The volume contains some twenty Greek texts on papyrus and ostraca, both theological and documentary, found during the excavation carried out by the Polish Archaeological Mission (directed by prof. Wlodzimierz Godlewski) at Deir el-Naqlun, a monastic complex at the Fayum, Egypt. Among them, there are: seven leaves from a finely decorated codex of Psalms (P. Naqlun inv. 34/88); two ostraka (O. Naqlun inv. 64/86 and 53/88) containing contiguous fragments of the Gospel according to Mathew; a small archive (from hermitage no. 89 of the Naqlun laura) made up of three notarial documents dated to ad 585-593; a dozen of fragmentarily preserved letters. Volume one of P. Naqlun was published by the same author in 1994.

These ten papers from two Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference (2007) sessions bring together a growing body of new archaeological evidence in an attempt to reconsider the way in which the Roman army was provisioned. Clearly, the adequate supply of food was essential to the success of the Roman military. But what was the nature of those supply networks? Did the army rely on imperial supply lines from the continent, as certainly appears to be the case for some commodities, or were provisions requisitioned from local agricultural communities? If the latter was the case, was unsustainable pressure placed on such resources and how did local communities respond? Alternatively, did the early stages of conquest include not only the development of a military infrastructure, but also an effective supply-chain network based on contracts? Beyond the initial stages of conquest, how were provisioning arrangements maintained in the longer term, did supply chains remain static or did they change over time and, if so, what precipitated those changes? Addressing such questions is critical if we are to understand the nature of Roman conquest and the extent of interaction between indigenous communities and the Roman army. Case studies come from Roman Britain (Alchester, Cheshire, Dorset), France, the Netherlands and the Rhine Delta, looking at evidence from animal products, military settlements, the size of cattle, horses, pottery and salt. The editors also provide a review of current research and suggest a future agenda for economic and environmental research.