Roman religion
Iron Age and Roman religion was quite similar in that they both had lots of gods.
Do some research in books and on the Internet to try to find out the names of
some of the gods of both periods and write them here:
Iron Age gods
Roman gods
The Romans would identify local gods with their own and replace them. The
British god Toutatis, for instance, was identified with Mars, Talanis was linked to
Jupiter and so on. Iron Age shrines were often replaced with Roman temples,
such as at Bath where a spring of the goddess Sulis was made into baths and a
shrine for Minerva. This meant that the Roman’s conquered Briton’s beliefs as
well as their land. Later, the Romans converted to Christianity.
Roman burial
Roman law dictated that all burials had to happen outside town walls and outside
settlements. This has meant that in large Roman towns, such as Verulamium (St
Albans) and Camulodunum (Colchester), there are many groups of burials or
cemeteries on the roads leading out of the town. There were no large towns in
what later became Buckinghamshire, and so no large cemeteries have been
found. Do a search on the Unlocking Buckinghamshire’s Past website to find all
the Roman period burials in Buckinghamshire and mark them on your map of
Roman burials in Buckinghamshire. Write five places here:
Some are inhumations and some are cremations. Generally, cremations are
earlier while inhumations are later. Most cremations in the Roman period are
accompanied by grave goods, objects that were either placed on the pyre with
the body or straight into the grave. From your previous search, find out what
types of things people are buried with and write them here:
Looking at the list of objects people in the Roman period were buried with, what
do you think they believed about the afterlife? Write your answers here:
Thornborough Roman landscape
Here are two Roman barrows at Thornborough, near Buckingham.
One was dug into in the 1830s. Do a search on the Unlocking Buckinghamshire’s
Past website to find out where Thornborough is and what was found there. Mark
Thornborough on your map of Roman burials. List the grave goods here:
What can the grave goods tell us about who was buried there? Circle the
answers in the table below:
Date?
Status?
Gender?
Age?
Nationality?
1st century AD
High
Male
Child
Roman
2nd century AD
Middle
Female
Adult
Briton
3rd century AD
Low
Unknown
Elderly
German
A Roman temple was also excavated at Thornborough. This is a reconstruction
of how it looked in the Roman period:
Do a search on the Unlocking Buckinghamshire’s Past website to find out about
it. Find the answers to these questions:
When was it excavated?
Who excavated it?
What objects made of metal did they find and how did they explain they got
there?
What date was the temple?
Was it around at the same time as the barrows?
How did people get to the temple?
Now you have the answers to questions about Thornborough barrows and
temple, write some text as if you were putting up a display board for visitors to
read at the two sites.