Number 69, November 2016
site at Chedworth. The site visit on Sunday
morning was in glorious weather and we spent a
pleasant couple of hours viewing and discussing
the many mosaics on show. For many members it
was the first opportunity to see the recent work
carried out by the National Trust to make the site
more accessible and easier to understand. It is a
challenging but worthwhile task and one in
which the care and presentation of the mosaics
clearly requires a significant programme of
ongoing
monitoring,
conservation
and
maintenance to ensure their future protection and
preservation.
Stephen Clews
ASPROM Summer Symposium 2016
The summer Symposium was held in
Cirencester and Chedworth on the weekend of
the 4–5 June. The Corinium Museum with its
wonderful collection of mosaics was our host on
the Saturday. Stephen Cosh led off with a tour of
the mosaics on display, followed by Neil
Holbrook from Cotswold Archaeology who set
the context for Cotswold mosaics with a lecture
in the pre-lunch session.
Romano-British Mosaics in 2016
Excavations have continued at Chedworth
Roman villa, Gloucestershire in August, directed
by Martin Papworth for the National Trust. This
year they concentrated on the west end of the
cross gallery, an area close to the Nymphaeum
and in Room 21 of the northern baths. The first
also included the south-east corner of Room 25b,
finding more of the bordering bands of red and
white already known from the more extensive
excavations in the room during 2014. The
investigation in Room 21 was more interesting as
it revealed the hypocaust of the early phase baths
which had been filled with building debris and
sealed beneath the opus signinum floor of the
frigidarium of the final phase baths. Among this
fill were fragments of mosaic, some heavily
encrusted with lime scale; they included parts of
a band of wave-crest pattern and possible
guilloche. It also contained mid-fourth century
material which could help date the major
refurbishment at the site, including well-known
mosaics.
In August work also began on the reexcavation of Lufton Roman Villa, Somerset,
where a fine series of mosaics were uncovered by
the late Len Hayward in the 1950s and 1960s.
The villa is best known for its spectacular
octagonal buildings with a cold plunge pool
Corinium Museum in Cirencester. Photo: Pat
Witts.
After lunch we had further contributions
from David Roberts on the Brixton Deverill villa
project, which ASPROM has supported with a
small grant, and Stephen Cosh whetted our
appetites for the visit to Chedworth the following
day with a presentation on the mosaics there. The
afternoon concluded with a film of excavations
of a villa site rich in mosaics at Coberley near
Cirencester.
An important aspect of summer symposia
which many members have come to look forward
to is the opportunity to enjoy the company of
people with a common interest, and this took
place with a dinner at the Corinium Hotel on the
Saturday evening.
We were joined for the Saturday sessions by
several local volunteers from the National Trust
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surrounded on seven of its eight sides by a
mosaic frieze featuring swimming fish. So far
work has concentrated on the hot baths and the
known grey tessellated pavement was
encountered.
Aradam on the city’s Metro Line C, scheduled
for completion in 2020. The finds included two
mosaics in adjacent rooms. Both are simple
black-and-white geometric designs with wide
black borders.
One, pictured above, is familiar to students of
Romano-British mosaics as it occurs at
Fishbourne, Wroxeter and Leicester. The other
mosaic was a repetitive design of circles and
poised squares, and on one side a third left plain,
perhaps indicating the position of furniture. It
was much patched with pieces of tile etc.
Steve Cosh
ASPROM Grant to Study the Mosaics of
Roman Iberia: Lucy Elkerton
Caption: The Lufton Frigidarium. Image: Steve
Cosh.
I was the recipient of a grant from ASPROM
this year, to contribute towards research that I am
undertaking as part of a PhD at the University of
Bristol. I began my study of mosaics in my
Masters degree, and became fascinated by these
intricate, elaborate images that were also part of
the very fabric of the building. I am intrigued by
the colour and richness they added to the spaces.
My research is focused on the mosaics of
Roman Iberia, and on questions of whether we
can utilise these images to talk about this
society’s approach to gender and gendered
identity. Although the mosaics of Roman Iberia
are very well catalogued in the National
Archaeological Institute of Spain’s regional
collections, I also wanted to visit the museums
and sites of these artefacts. I have undertaken two
research trips to Spain so far, to Seville and to
Barcelona, using the funds generously provided
by ASPROM. They have proved incredibly
valuable in grounding me in this material and the
context of Roman Iberia.
In Seville, I visited the Archaeological
museum, the museum of the Condesa de Lebrija,
and the site of Italica. I spent three days
absorbing all the Roman mosaics in the city. One
highlight was the mosaic of Hercules and Hylas.
This beautiful piece is very interesting in terms
of gender as it shows one of the greatest heroes
of the Greco-Roman canon “unmanned” by grief
– he cannot perform the expected behaviours of a
masculine hero. It is a really interesting
combination of distorted gender roles. The plan
below shows this was a private room, accessible
through an antechamber from the central patio.
The elite male owner of the villa is teasing
himself with a glimpse of danger – of the loss of
masculinity and the monstrous feminine – in this
safe, intimate space in his domain.
As part of the preparation for a television
programme about this dig, the BBC sent me
some images to see if I could possibly identify
their source so they could contact the copyright
holder. It was not a difficult task as I recognised
them as my own paintings which I worked on
with Len Hayward, back in the 1980s. Fond
memories!
A panel from the Hadrianic barracks in Rome.
Image: Steve Cosh.
Discoveries abroad usually outshine those
from Britannia. It was reported in May of this
year that work on a new metro line in Rome has
unearthed a huge second-century barracks
covering some 900 square metres. The site,
thought to have housed Hadrian’s Praetorian
Guard, includes a 100m hallway with 39 rooms.
It is hoped that these can be incorporated for
display into plans for the new station at Amba
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looking at how Bacchic themes and their
potentially more ambiguous approach to gender
is expressed in the Iberian mosaics.
Triumph of Bacchus, Tarragona Archaeological
Museum. Photo: Lucy Elkerton.
My third and final trip occurred in September
when I visited Madrid and Merida. These trips
have been very valuable, allowing me to
experience these fabulous mosaics at first hand,
greatly enriching my research. For this I am very
grateful for the support of ASPROM and look
forward to continuing my engagement with the
society in future.
Lucy Elkerton
Hercules and Hylas mosaic from the site of
Italica, Spain, now in the Seville Archaeological
Museum. Photo: Lucy Elkerton.
ASPROM Site Grants
The Committee would like to remind
everyone about the ASPROM scheme which
offers grants to museums and archaeological sites
with Roman mosaics.
Since 2007 the Society has been awarding
grants annually to ASPROM members
undertaking research or publishing on ancient
mosaics, or participating in a project to conserve
them. These grants have covered travel or
photography costs, for example, or specialist
conservation treatments. In return, the successful
applicants have submitted papers to our
journal Mosaic or given a lecture at one of our
symposia. At the December 2013 AGM, a new
grant scheme was proposed to support the work
of museums or sites with mosaics. Members and
the committee approved this initiative.
The grants, each up to £500, are offered to
help with the costs of individual or ongoing
projects relating to the presentation, conservation
or study of Roman mosaics. The applicants can
be the owner or director of a museum or
archaeological site, an organisation that supports
their work, or an individual acting on their
behalf. In return, successful applicants submit a
report for publication in ASPROM’s newsletter
or journal, or to give a talk at one of the Society’s
Plan of the Casa de Hylas, Italica, with location
of mosaics (http://www.arretetonchar.fr/italicaandalousie/ accessed 21/08/15)
For my second research trip I visited
Barcelona and Tarragona. Tarragona was another
highlight, as it has several intact Roman
monuments. The medieval city follows the lines
of the provincial forum, so it was possible to
really understand the context of the city.
One of the key mosaics I saw there was a
large Triumph of Bacchus, which is relevant for
the chapter I am currently working on. I am
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symposia. Where possible, an acknowledgement
of the grant is displayed publicly.
Application forms, along with terms and
conditions, are available on our website
(http://www.asprom.org/about/grants.html)
or
can be obtained by contacting the Hon. Secretary
(honsec@asprom.org). There are two deadlines
for applications each year, at the end of January
and August. The next deadline is 31st January
2017. The Committee will consider submissions
at their meeting in March with the outcome being
made known soon afterwards.
This is a recent and exciting initiative
intended to support and encourage the many
public and private institutions with mosaics.
Please encourage your local museums and sites
to apply.
The ASPROM Committee
To See and to Note
It is with great pleasure that we announce
the publication of Pat Witts’ most recent book, A
Mosaic Menagerie: Creatures of Land Sea and
Sky in Romano-British Mosaics. This publication
is an important achievement by one of our
longstanding members, who has also served for
many years on the ASPROM committee. We
wish Pat many congratulations and hope you will
all enjoy reading this excellent study of animals
as they appear in Romano-British floor mosaics.
You can purchase your own copy via BAR
Publishing,
either
online
at http://www.barpublishing.com or by telephone
on +44 (0)1865 310431.
Meet our Membership
Anne McClanan is Professor of Art History
at Portland State University in Oregon, USA. Her
interest in mosaics is focused on the Great Palace
Mosaics in Istanbul, and earlier work explored
the early Byzantine mosaics in Ravenna. She
joined ASPROM to keep up with new research
more generally within Roman mosaic studies.
Her current project specifically delves into
representations of griffins, so she welcomes any
leads to newly discovered examples, etc. To learn
more about Anne’s research, consult her book
Representations of Early Byzantine Empresses:
Image and Empire published in 2002 by Palgrave
Macmillan US (ISBN 978-1-137-04469-3).
This year ASPROM’s AGM and
Symposium will once again be held on the Strand
at King’s College London. The event starts at
10.30am with tea and coffee in the Council
Rooms (K2.29). This is followed by the AGM
from 11am in Lecture Theatre K2.31. After lunch
we will welcome the following speakers: Roger
Ling introducing Pat Witts’ A Mosaic
Menagerie (BAR, Oxford, 2016), Alessandra
Pompili speaking on ‘Mosaics and sectilia from
the Domus del Ninfeo at Ostia’, Miguel Angel
Valero on ‘The late antique villa at Noheda
(Villar de Domingo Garcia) near Cuenca and its
mosaics’, and Eileen Rubery on ‘The mosaics of
Rome and its environs and of Roman Britain:
what are they reflecting?’ The programme and
booking form are distributed with the Newsletter
and
are
also
available
online
at
http://www.asprom.org/news/#events.
ASPROM Committee Opportunities:
Events Secretary & Honorary Secretary
At the Winter AGM, committee posts will
once again come up for election. We are still
without an Events Secretary, an enjoyable role of
great importance and value to our membership.
In addition, our Honorary Secretary plans to step
down at end of 2017 after 3 years of exemplary
service to the Society. This position is at the
heart of ASPROM and crucial to its smooth
running. Both jobs are genuinely good fun and
rewarding while also being fundamental to the
Society’s success and good governance. For
more information, please contact either Will
Wootton (will.wootton@kcl.ac.uk) or Marjorie
Mackintosh (honsec@asprom.org).
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