Britannia 40

Examines the landscape context of the Bartlow Hills, a group of large Romano- British barrows that were excavated in the 1840s but have been largely neglected since. GIS is employed to test whether it was possible to view the mounds from nearby roads, barrows, and villas. Existing research on provincial barrows, and especially their landscape context, and some recent relevant applications of GIS are reviewed. It is argued that barrows are active and symbolically charged statements about power and identity. A pattern of focus on display to a local rather than a transient audience is identified.

The review of a series of oblique aerial photographs recording a Neolithic bank barrow and adjacent post-medieval field-system identified the ground-plan of a Roman temporary camp on the rising ground to the north-east of the Roman fort at Raeburnfoot, Dumfriesshire. Further analysis, later confirmed by field survey, recognised the presence of at least two upstanding gateways of a form usually referred to as the 'Stracathro'-type and so far only known in Scotland. All the other examples are known only as cropmarks, making the camp at Raeburnfoot the sole visible earthwork camp with these unusual entrances known in the Roman world.

The left hand and forearm from a slightly over life-size bronze or copper-alloy arm was excavated during 2001 at 20'“30 Gresham Street, within the City of London. It was discarded in a quarry pit, which flooded with groundwater turning it into a pond and was subsequently backfilled c. a.d. 60'“70. The arm was presumably part of a public statue, perhaps of an emperor or god, which had been deliberately broken up. The Boudican revolt of a.d. 60/1 is one possible context for the destruction of Roman statuary in London, but the end of Nero's reign, some ten years later, is another period when any statues of this very unpopular emperor could have been broken up. Includes a catalogue of previous finds of bronze statuary from London (where more fragments of arms and hands have been recovered than anywhere else in Britain), the results of metallurgical examination of the arm, and a discussion of iconoclasm in Roman Britain.

Brief notes on sites investigated over the past year, divided by country and county. PP-B

Describes and illustrates inscriptions identified during 2008. Arranged by type (Monumental and Instrumentum Domesticum) and location. PP-B