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Apollo, Beasts and Seasons: Some Thoughts on the Littlecote Mosaic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2011

J. M. C. Toynbee
J. M. C. Toynbee
Affiliation:
22 Park Town, Oxford.
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Extract

Among discoveries in Roman Britain in 1978 one of the most exciting and most unexpected was that made in Littlecote Park in Wiltshire, 3½ miles west of Hungerford. Here the remains of a new Roman villa have come to light. But much more important was the relocation by Mr Bryn Walters, Director of the Littlecote Park Excavation Unit, and his colleagues of the large half triconch, half rectangular room structurally separate from the villa that lies to the south of it, sited between the villa and the river Kennet to the north, and measuring 41 by 25 ft. (12·5 × 7·6 m). The floor of this room had been completely covered by a partly figured, partly geometric mosaic pavement (PL. 1), found in 1727 a few feet below the ground surface by Mr William George (steward of Mr Edward Popham, the then owner of Littlecote House and Park), who made coloured drawings of it on separate sheets of paper and died not long afterwards. From these drawings (now no longer extant) Mr George's widow made a complete needlework reproduction in colour (still preserved at Littlecote House) of the mosaic, which was meanwhile reported to be wholly lost and destroyed. But when Mr Walters uncovered the triconch room there was a large portion of the mosaic floor, c. 40 per cent still surviving in situ, including important parts both of the figure-work and of the geometric patterns (B. Walters and B. Phillips, Archaeological Excavations in Littlecote Park, Wiltshire 1978: First Interim Report (1979)).

Type
Articles
Information
Britannia , Volume 12 , November 1981 , pp. 1 - 5
Copyright
Copyright © J. M. C. Toynbee 1981. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

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