TWO FREE LECTURES
As we expected over 100 people turned up to hear Dr Mark Lewis and Dr Peter Guest’s
lectures, a wonderful testament to the interest that these two superb archaeologists can
attract.
Dr Mark Lewis, Curator of National Roman Legion Museum lectured on the portrait created
from the Roman man’s skull and produced using the latest technology.
Digital reconstruction of the skull
Above is a reconstruction of the facial features of the man whose skeleton was uncovered in
November 1995, when builders working on the Newport University campus found the
skeletal remains of a 45 year old man who had lived in 200 AD. The Bath stone coffin was
unearthed by a mechanical digger, which broke it into several sections. Most of the pieces
were retrieved, but one area was so badly damaged no pieces survived. In Summer 2010 the
museum started working to redisplay the coffin in a fashion that is closer to its original form
thanks to funding from the Friends of Amgueddfa Cymru. National Museum Wales.Isotype
analysis carried out on the enamel of one of the skeleton’s teeth revealed that the man had
spent his childhood in the western side of Gwent at Newport, Liswerry or Caerwent. He was
buried with bowls if food and a bottle of oil perfume. There are few burials in stone coffins
of this area of south wales and the fact that he was buried rather than cremated as most of the
people were at that time was a clue to the fact he was probably well off. Burial in this
manner had not always been the norm in Roman society. Until the late 2nd century AD most
people were cremated; their ashes often being buried in a glass or pottery vessel. However
from this time burial traditions began to change. New ideas about the afterlife required that
the body be buried 'intact'. These ideas were due to influences from the eastern part of the
Empire such as Egypt and the cult of Mithras. Mark Lewis suggested he might have been a
wealthy merchant supplying the Caerleon Roman fortress or been high up in the
administration of the fortress or may even have even served in the army and come home to
Wales for retirement. He had two genetic differences from the norm. He had no third set of
molars and one of the sutures on his head had not fused. Dr Mark Lewis referred to the need
to display human remains ethically and the Perspex Gaps in the coffin allowed visitors to
push things into the display. Therefore the coffin lid was replaced and still allows people to
view the skeleton in situ. The retrieval of a small piece of the nose bone allowed the shape of
the man’s features to be fairly accurately interpreted. The digital reconstruction has been
compared to Sylvester Stallone and even Richard Burton.
After tea and cakes, Dr Peter Guest, Senior Lecturer at the School of History, Archaeology
& Religion at Cardiff University, agreed to lecture on the fascinating and on-going research
into the finds excavated at Caerleon. The excavations were directed Drs Peter
Guest and Andrew Gardner who are currently working on the post-excavation analysis and
publication. Funding was provided by Cardiff University, UCL, and Cadw.
From 2007-2008 Peter Guest and his team which included contributions from Dr Mark
Lewis, excavated the site of the legionary fortress at Caerleon including a warehouse on the
Priory Field and a newly discovered suburb of monumental buildings known as the southern
canabae which is a civil settlement attached to a fort.This was part of a project known as,
Mapping Isca: the Roman legionary fortress at Caerleon and its environs
Peter Guest began by describing the excavations that took place as part of the project and
began with the finds that came from the excavation at the Priory Field.
A major joint excavation was undertaken in 2008 and 2010 by staff and students from
Cardiff University and the Institute of Archaeology UCL on the site of a large store or
warehouse within the fortress at Caerleon. Originally identified during geophysical surveys
of Priory Field in 2006, the building was square in plan and consisted of four ranges of
rooms around a square internal courtyard. The excavation revealed about 70% of the frontrange, including the building’s main paved entranceway, a guard chamber, a possible
stairway, and four small undecorated square rooms believed to be store rooms.
The store appears to have collapsed or been partly demolished during the later Roman
period, after which more superficial stone buildings were built up against the original
building’s front wall. These later structures were poorly built and at least one fell down,
probably not long after it was erected c. 350AD.
The excavations produced many thousands of finds, including a remarkable scatter of
armour and other military equipment lying above the latest floor in one of the store rooms.
The armour includes numerous fragments of lorica segmentata (iron strip armour), as well as
pieces of more elaborate bronze scale armour, probably worn by soldiers and their officers
on parade and at official ceremonies. Finds of armour such as this are surprisingly rare and
the fragments were lifted in blocks to be excavated under laboratory conditions at
the National Museum Cardiff. The Collapsed roof might have happened when the building
was already old and when the armour might have been old and possibly no longer in use. For
me the main interest came with the metal work which research placed on chamfrons, leather
heads used to protect a horses heads and were often highly decorated for special occasions.
The metal faces had Phrygian caps reminiscent of those connected to the cult of Mithras.
Caerleon's monumental complex: excavating the Southern Canabae
The excavation was directed Dr Peter Guest (Cardiff University) and Mike Luke (Albion
Archaeology). An interim report of the 2011 season is available in the Cardiff Studies in
Archaeology Series. Funding was provided by Cardiff University, The Roman Research
Trust, The Haverfield Bequest, Newport City Council and Time Team.
Above can be seen the geophysical results for 2006-11, showing the Southern Canabae
complex (© Geo Arch)
Trenches excavated by Peter Guest and his team in 2011 explored several structures within
monumental buildings between Caerleon's amphitheatre and the River Usk. Their size and
layout suggests these were public buildings that could have included administrative
buildings, bath-houses and possibly accommodation for travelling army officers and
government officials. The suburb looks like it should be at the centre of a town or city, but
there is no evidence for the presence of a large civilian population living around Caerleon.
Instead it is possible that together these buildings formed Caerleon's canabae legionis - the
official settlement around the fortress from which the territory under legionary command
was administered.
Aerial photograph of the 2011 excavation trenches. © Cardiff University.
Nine trenches were opened across an area of approximately 5 hectares and found that the
remains of the Roman buildings are remarkably well preserved just below the modern
ground surface. Four of the trenches were located around a very large courtyard structure
close to the River Usk. It seems that the course of river must have been some distance further
east than was previously believed and the excavations found evidence for a row of buildings
lying parallel to the river that were probably associated with a quay that has since been
eroded away.
The remaining five trenches investigated other structures within the Southern Canabae
complex. These revealed part of two basilica-like buildings whose rooms and corridors had
been provided with concreteopus signinum floors and painted wall plaster, a disturbed
hypocaust, open courtyards, and buildings that could have served as workshops. Numerous
segmented circular bricks demonstrate the use of brick columns in parts of at least two
buildings. One trench produced a length of lead pipe, presumably supplying fresh water to
fountains or water features that remain to be discovered, which terminated with a circular
plate still containing the nails with which it had been attached to a tank of some kind.
Another trench overlooking the main axis of the large courtyard structure produced the
remains of a collapsed barrel vault that had collapsed into the room below. This discovery,
together with the edge of a tessellated floor uncovered at the end of the same trench,
indicates that several of the buildings in the Southern Canabae were very elaborate indeed.
The analysis of the thousands of finds is currently underway. The preliminary study of the
pottery assemblage indicates the suburb could have been first constructed at about the same
time as the fortress (i.e. A.D. 70s), but that the majority of the buildings would seem to have
been abandoned perhaps as soon as the early third century. After this some were possibly
used for the disposal of rubbish during the late Roman period, including the remains of
unusually large quantities of pigs and birds. After this the buildings were stripped of their
stone and tile before disappearing for 1,500 years to be rediscovered by student
archaeologists and their tutors in 2010.
Peter referred to the finds in one area which revealed a large number of pig and crow bones
and stated that such finds were usually connected to shrines. He is surprised at the lack of
such evidence and hoped in the future that more evidence would come to light.