Building Britannia: pre-Flavian private and public construction across Southern Britain

Fulford, M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8780-9691 and Machin, S. (2021) Building Britannia: pre-Flavian private and public construction across Southern Britain. Britannia, 52. pp. 207-225. ISSN 1753-5352 doi: 10.1017/S0068113X2100009X

Abstract/Summary

Excavation of the Roman tilery at Little London, Pamber, Hampshire has prompted a re-assessment of the dating of relief-patterned tile, assigning the bulk of production to the Claudio-Neronian period rather than the late first to mid/late-second century. This material has been privileged for retention in excavation archives but can now be seen as a proxy for the manufacture of a much wider range of ceramic building material, typically discarded on site, which, in the case of products from Little London and pre-Flavian Minety (Wilts.) travelled distances of up to 100 km. Re-dating implies more extensive public and private building in town and country south and east of the Fosse Way before the Flavian period than has previously been envisaged. While private building included the construction of bath houses, heated rooms and the provision of roofing materials, public building, we suggest, provided ‘tabernas et praetoria’ along the principal roads of the province. In the private sphere such building provides a possible context for Dio Cassius’ mention of the recall and confiscation of large loans made to Britons before the Boudican rebellion. Finally, consideration of fabric needs to be added to the criteria for retaining ceramic building material in excavation archives.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/100234
Item Type	Article
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Science > School of Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Science > Department of Archaeology
Publisher	Cambridge University Press
Download/View statistics	View download statistics for this item