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The Excavation of Insula IX, Silchester: the First Five Years of the ‘Town Life’ Project, 1997–2001

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2011

Amanda Clarke  and
Michael Fulford
Amanda Clarke
Affiliation:
University of Reading, a.s.clarke@reading.ac.uk
Michael Fulford
Affiliation:
University of Reading, m.g.fulford@reading.ac.uk
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Extract

Following recent study and excavation of the defences, amphitheatre and forum-basilica of Silchester (Calleva Atrebatum), challenging questions about the origins, development, decline and eventual abandonment of the Roman city invited fresh excavation of a representative insula. A well known, but nevertheless major deficiency of the Victorian and Edwardian excavations at Silchester is the almost total absence of chronology, either relative or absolute, such that we have little basis on which to determine the development of the city through time. In making the selection of an appropriate area in which to investigate the larger issues, consideration had to be given to a number of criteria: the chosen insula should have reliable evidence for the presence of buildings not recognised in the Society of Antiquaries' excavations of 1890–1909. In this way it would be possible to assess the extent of the loss of stratigraphie information as a result of the earlier excavation. Equally the selected insula should offer the prospect of investigating apparently blank areas which might, with modern methods of area excavation, yield evidence of timber-framed buildings which the early excavators had failed to recognise. Account also had to be taken of a distinctive element of the town plan of Calleva which includes buildings both aligned with the Roman street grid and oriented at a variety of angles askew to the streets in order to ascertain how far they shared a common history.

Type
Articles
Information
Britannia , Volume 33 , November 2002 , pp. 129 - 166
Copyright
Copyright © Amanda Clarke and Michael Fulford 2002. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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