For almost three hundred years, excavations have been carried out in Roman Bath. At first these were rare and sporadic and archaeological finds were made by chance. Even fewer were reported. But from the 1860s, deliberate investigations were made and increasingly professional methods employed. The Roman Baths were laid open to view, but little was published. From the 1950s, interest accelerated, professionals and amateurs collaborated, and there was never a decade in which some new discovery was not made. The first popular but authoritative presentation of this work was made in 1971 and updated several times. However, from the 1990s to the present there has been some sort of archaeological investigation almost every year. This has thrown much new and unexpected light on the town of Aquae Sulis and its citizens. In this book, Peter Davenport, having been involved in most of the archaeological work in Bath since 1980, attempts to tell the story of Roman Bath: the latest interim report on the 'Three Hundred Year Dig'.

A round-up of excavations undertaken by Bath Archaeological Trust between 1984 and 1989. These consist mainly of the excavation of the Roman and medieval town centre of Bath Street and Beau Street and at the Cross Bath, and of a Roman site at Julian Road.

The Hindenberg disaster. Andy Warhol's Campbell s Soup Can. Marilyn Monroe standing over the subway grating. The first step onto the Moon. These powerful images have left an indelible impression in our collective mind's eye. This mesmerizing little volume celebrates these and hundreds of other artistic and cultural touchstones without actually reproducing them. Each page is devoted to a single image, with a caption providing its title or description and the date that it was created. Just that information evokes the image vividly. The page itself is blank. Dorothea Lange's Migrant Mother. The album cover of Sgt. Pepper. A man facing a row of tanks in Tiananmen Square. Arranged in chronological order from 1900 to the present, these images are a testament to the enduring impact of photography, art, and the image as well as to the graphic precision of our shared memory bank. It's also a great pop quiz on cultural literacy.

Prior to the building of the new Bath Spa, in the centre of the World Heritage City of Bath, excavations were carried out to record the archaeological remains threatened by its construction. Evidence was recovered of the presence and perhaps the rituals of mesolithic hunter-gatherers, hitherto unknown official Roman buildings of the first and second centuries and some indication of activity in the late Saxon and medieval periods. An important part of the dig was a programme of geoarchaeological research to study the microstructure of the soils excavated with a view to understanding the activities that led to their formation.

Peter Davenport, as Director of Excavations at the Bath Archaeological Trust, has been involved in some of the most important excavations in the city and, therefore, is in a better position than most to inform us about those "centuries of historical amnesia" that followed the departure of the Romans. The book follows the reconstruction of the city around its convent and monastery and, later, its cathedral. The book is illustrated throughout with photographs and drawings of sites, buildings, artworks, artifacts, and maps.