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Over 400 recent finds associated with horses and excavated in
London, from the utilitarian to the highly decorated, illustrated
and discussed. Whether knight's charger or beast of burden, horses
played a vital role in medieval life. The wealth of medieval finds
excavated in London in recent years has, not surprisingly, included
many objects associated with horses. This catalogue illustrates and
discusses over four hundred such objects, among them harness,
horseshoes, spurs and curry combs, from the utilitarian to highly
decorative pieces. London served by horse traffic comes vividly in
view. The introductory chapter draws on historical as well as
archaeological sources to consider the role of the horse in
medieval London. It looks at the price of horses and the costs of
maintaining them, the hiring of 'hackneys' forriding, the use of
carts in and around London, and the work of the 'marshal' or
farrier. It discusses the evidence for the size of medieval horses
and includes a survey of finds of medieval horse skeletons from
London. It answersthe key questions, how large a 'Great Horse' was,
and why it took three horses to pull a cart. This is a basic work
of reference for archaeologists and those studying medieval
artefacts, and absorbing reading for everyone interested in the
history of the horse and its use by humankind. JOHN CLARK is
Curator (Medieval) at the Museum of London.
London's Spitalfields Market was the location of one of the city's
largest archaeological excavations, carried out by MOLA between
1991 and 2007. This book presents the archaeological and
bioarchaeological evidence for Roman activity here, to the
north-east of the urban settlement and the site of a series of
burial grounds on the east side of Ermine Street. Burial began here
c AD 120 and continued into the 4th century AD. Excavation revealed
a number of ditched enclosures, some used for the interment of 169
inhumations and five cremation burials, some for other purposes.
Among the early burials men outnumbered women by five to one, but
by the later 3rd and 4th centuries AD a more even sex ratio
prevailed. Subadults were well represented, with one area
apparently set aside for the burial of neonates and children. The
cemetery attracted some particularly wealthy 4th-century AD
burials, including at least two in stone sarcophagi, one of which
contained an inner, decorated, lead coffin enclosing a young woman.
She had been anointed with imported resins and buried in fine
clothing, with unusual glassware and jet items. Some burial rites
and grave goods are more familiar from Continental cemeteries,
emphasising the cosmopolitan and mobile nature of London's
population.
Excavations in the upper Walbrook valley, in a marginal area in the
north-west of the Roman city, recovered over 70kg of broken vessel
glass and production waste from a nearby workshop, giving new
insights into the workings of the glass industry and its craftsmen.
The area was developed in the early 2nd century AD, with evidence
of domestic buildings and property boundaries. Two later buildings
constructed in the mid 2nd century AD may have been associated with
the glass-working industry. The disposal of a huge amount of
glass-working waste in the later 2nd century signals the demise of
the workshop, with the area reverting to open land by the 3rd
century AD. The comprehensive nature of the glass-working waste has
made it possible to study the various processes - from the
preparation of the raw materials in the form of cullet, broken
vessel and window glass, to the blowing and finishing of the
vessel. All the glass originated ultimately in the eastern
Mediterranean, some of it arriving as raw glass chunks, which was
supplemented by cullet collected locally for recycling. A review of
the current evidence for glass working in London also examines the
implications for the organisation of the industry.
This report presents an overview of Roman urban development in
London south of the Thames. The establishment of the Roman bridge
and the first approach roads and landing places, made Southwark an
ideal location for the development of facilities for the
trans-shipment of goods between land and river. The wide range of
data from 41 previously unpublished north Southwark sites provides
the means for 'mapping' Roman activity in Southwark: the nature of
the early settlement, changing patterns of land use and broader
processes of social and economic change. Early land reclamation
preceded the establishment of a thriving trade centre involved in
the redistribution or marketing of locally processed and imported
goods, with evidence of a concentration of buildings burnt in
Boudican fire of AD 61 along the main road to the bridgehead.
Increased land reclamation and construction of more masonry
buildings in the 2nd century AD indicate further growth. By the 3rd
century large stone buildings at ten of the sites reported suggest
an administrative area housing official residences. After the mid
4th century the settlement contracted to the area immediately
around the bridgehead with a cemetery on previously occupied land
to the south.
Excavations in Syon Park, Brentford, have made a substantial
contribution to our knowledge of this Roman rural settlement on the
London-Silchester road, by a ford across the Thames. The site
yielded a well-dated sequence - from the mid 1st to early 5th
century AD - including occupation deposits and two 2nd-century
timber buildings destroyed by fire, as well as details of the main
road and adjacent field system. These and a large assemblage of
finds, including a surgical instrument and a roundel depicting the
Medusa, provide a rare glimpse of life in the countryside in the
hinterland of Londinium. A detailed overview of Roman Brentford
(the first to be published since 1978) is included.
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R398
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