Roman Cologne

I am currently preparing a day school on Roman and Frankish Cologne, or Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium for an English beginners audience. This is traditionally quite easy, there are numerous books on Roman Cologne, written in the aftermath of the excavations of the post-war years and in the years after the opening of the Römisch-Germanisches Museum in Cologne in 1974. There is just one problem - most of them are in German and to judge from the English language Wikipedia pages (eg. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonia_Claudia_Ara_Agrippinensium), there is a presumption that this has not really needed updating.

However, in the 2000s COlogne invested heavily in a new underground line that crossed the entirety of the historical city and led to some of the largest scale excavations in Germany, both in depth (up to 14m down and in size, one publication speaking of over 100 football fields of intensive excavation).

This happened in addition to an archaeology department in the University of Cologne that encouraged students into working with the huge amounts of legacy material available in the Cologne Museum as well as the publication of the Cathedral excavations from the 1960s.

The result: we now have a much more differentiated picture of Roman and Frankish Cologne. More differentiated, as we better understand some of the public buildings, the fact that we have a near complete image of the waterfront along the first-century harbour. More differentiated, as we begin to understand that Cologne, as so many well excavated Roman cities does not easily fit in pre-conceived structures of development of 'The Ancient City', but is idiosyncratic and surprising. Beginning with very early Roman military installations close to the Cologne Hauptbahnhof to the vast extent of the suburban settlements, whose size of over 20 ha each dwarf the size of many of the civitas capitals of Roman Britain and whose industrial character underlines the economic importance of the city - more than its public buildings can.

So, how to offer this to the English speaking audience? Frankly with great difficulty. The literature is vast, but in view of the fact that time is limited and the learning of the German language (as Mark Twain observed) demanding a substantial amount of time, I came to the conclusion that I had to work with some help.

I found two books particularly helpful -  One is the book accompanying the 2012 exhibition on the finds from the excavations for the Underground line mentioned above. It is called ZeitTunnel. 2000 Jahre Köln im Spiegel der U-Bahn Archäologie by Markus Trier and Friederike Naumann-Steckner (2012). The texts are short and easily scanned and introduced to Google Translate, which is producing on the whole understandable translations.

The second one is Thomas Fischer and Marcus Trier. Roman Cologne. The Historical City Guide (2014). It is not a walking guide, it has a list of the sites worth visiting in the back, but this is a well written coherent account of the history and archaeology of Cologne from its beginnings to the 6/7th century Frankish remains. (and very handily is also available as an ebook, as well as a paper volume, so less to carry), it makes for great reading BEFORE you get to  Cologne (or before you need to hand that term paper in :-)).  Everything is in one place, and unlike a lot of guides that cover the area inside the city wall and the churches, this is actually taking in the territory of the city as well. So you get good summaries of the suburbia, of the cemetery areas, but also of the villae rusticae surrounding the colonia. If your German is up to it, there is further reading in the back of the book and it really has beautiful photographs and very helpful maps.

Tracking down Elizabeth dashing young men in London

This autumn I will be giving a day-school on "Singing the beard of the King of Spain".
A great topic that I am really looking forward to, especially as it will be a cooperation with a dear colleague and historian.
The idea is to trace the history of the English and Dutch war against Spain and Portugal under Elizabeth and James I on one side and the Dutch Republic under William, Maurice and Johan of Orange on the other.

I suspect our problem will not be what to include, but rather what to exclude as the period is rich in sources and frankly lots of derring-do and the odd pirate shenanigan.

St.Giles' Cripplegate and the London Wall.
Copyright B.Hoffmann 

As part of the preparations, I decided to track down some of the memorials in London to the men, who were involved in these wars. People like Francis Drake (in Portobelo Bay, Panama (definitely out of reach for my budget at the moment) and Walter Raleigh (in St.Margaret's in Westminster), but frankly there are so many more to look into.

The father of Anne Clifford of Civil War fame, George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland is one of these and I am looking forward to visiting Skipton Castle later this summer.

Martin Frobisher (of the North West Passage is another one), as is Humphrey Gilbert (founder of Newfoundland and half-brother to Walter Raleigh). These two are both commemorated in St.Giles' Cripplegate in London.

St. Giles' Cripplegate is the medieval church in the centre of the Barbican complex in London. Surrounded by Modern Brutalist architecture and lots of fountains and some impressive remains of London'S city wall, it is easy to rush dismiss it on your way to or from the Barbican Centre or the Museum of London. Connoisseurs of Organ music love the place (for its beautiful organs and the associated concerts). But as one of the few surviving medieval churches in London it is actually worth visiting, despite the damage caused by the Cripplegate Fire of 1897 and the bombs during the Blitz.

For those interested in what was lost, there exists a description of the original monuments in the church dating to 1806, in D.Hughson's London (from p. 353 onwards), but what survives is still of interest to the history or literature enthusiast and in a way, it helps not to have to find your way through hundreds of other memorials as in St.Margaret's in Westminster.

Memorials to John Speed and Martin Frobisher in St. Giles' Cripplegate. 

With links to Shakespeare, John Speed the mapmaker, Milton, John Foxe and numerous others, St.Giles must have been a real centre of Elizabethan and Stuart society and one wonders, how much the members of the congregation mingled after Sunday services. Either way, its modern position between the Museum of London and its historical displays and the Barbican Centre with its exhibitions and theatre and music productions seems strangely appropriate.

So next time you are in the area, make the effort and come down the stairs and take a look, it is a real gem.

Iron Age hillforts in Thuringia

Alter Gleisberg (Copyright: Peter Ettel
(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AlterGleisberg.jpg=)

Hillforts are a well-known and well-studied feature of the Bronze and Iron Ages of France, Germany, the Czech Republic, as well as Austria. By definition, they are a feature of the hilly parts of Europe and while they can come in all shapes and sizes, it is the really large ones, such as the Mont Beuvray or the Heuneburg that attract the most attention, not least because of their contacts with the Mediterranean in the late Bronze Age and the Iron Age.

But how far north do they reach? Of necessity, they are unlikely to exist north of Cologne-Münster-Osnabrück and Magdeburg, as the area is just too flat. But it now seems that they not only stretch pretty close to this geographical limit but exist in some considerable size.

In Thuringia at the Alte Gleisberg near Löberschütz between Jena, Weimar and Eisenberg, is an insulated hill about 340m tall with a series of plateaus at the top, surrounded by several tributaries of the Saale River. In close proximity, two other smaller hillforts (c.3ha each) are known at Jenzig and Johannisberg. The Gleisberg has, however, a much larger viewshed, covering an area of c. 56 sqkm. 

Decorated bucchero from Alten
Gleisberg (copyright: http://www.jenaloebnitz.de/
rundumsgeistal/fruehgeschiche/index.html)

While the hill has been known to be occupied thanks to fieldwalking finds dating back as far as the 19th century, organised fieldwork only started around 2004, when a piece of decorated Etruscan Bucchero pottery was found on the hill. Since then geophysical surveys and excavations have established that the occupation on the hill covered nearly 7ha and ranged in date from the late Neolithic through the Bronze Age to the Iron Age.
While the excavations have produced numerous postholes and features, as well as the typical spectrum of finds from these high-status sites, including metal pins, brooches, beads and spindlewhorls.

bangles and fragments of sapropelic coal found in 2014
(copyright Ur-und frühgeschichtliche Archäologie Jena)

The excavations on the Middle Terrace in the last few years have produced evidence for metalworking with moulds and tuyères, as well as bone-working and evidence for a bangle workshop using sapropelic coal. 

The finds suggest that particularly in the 1st millennium BC, during the Urnfield, Hallstatt- and Early LaTène period the hill was the centre of power in the area is is currently the northernmost of these large centres in Thuringia and the only one with Mediterranean import.

2013 excavations (Foto: J.P.Kasper)

The excavations are continuing. 

Bibliography:

• Peter Ettel, Burgenbau und Binnenschiffahrt. Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologen Verbandes e.V. 47,2, 2016, 70-82.
• Klaus Simon: Ein Bucchero-Fragment vom Alten Gleisberg bei Bürgel (Thüringen). In: Arbeits- und Forschungsberichte zur sächsischen Bodendenkmalpflege 41, 1999, S. 61–96.
• further informations on the excavations can be found at the Seminar für Ur- und Frühgeschichtliche Archäologie, Universität Jena. (http://www.ufg.uni-jena.de/Projekte/Aktuelle+Projekte/Vorgeschichte/Alter+Gleisberg.html)

"Rivers, Roman Harbours and the Roman Army". Call for Papers

CALL FOR PAPERS FOR ROMAN CONFERENCE

Rivers, Roman Harbours and the Roman Army

 MAnchester, UK, 23 SEPTEMBER 2017

Following on from last year’s successful conference in co-operation with MANCENT, we are continuing the series of conferences on the Roman Military.

The next conference will be held on September 23,  2017 in Manchester, UK.

The topic will be

Rivers, Roman Harbours and
the Roman Army

The Roman fort at Cardean at the confluent of the Isla and Dean. Do the large annexe ditches that run form the river to the fort,  protect an old harbour facility?

The idea is to explore how the Roman army is was using rivers for their own needs, of particular interest is the questions of the presence of harbours in the vicinity of Roman forts.

Some of the themes of interest may be:

• How common are permanent harbour installations such as stone or wooden quays or breakwaters? 
• What is the evidence for ship sheds or shipyards close to Roman sites?
• How do you recognise a chandler’s shop in the archaeological material? 
• Should we be looking for nothing more sophisticated than a sandy bend in the river that might allow small river boats to be run ashore at night? 
• How common are riverside warehouses?  
• How do you differentiate between civilian and military use in harbour facilities?

In the last 10 years a lot of research has been conducted on Roman trade and harbour installations, both in Britain and especially abroad from Ostia to the large research project on the Rhine harbours and anchorages.

We would like to invite established scholars and postgraduates to submit papers to this day conference and workshop. The deadline for submissions will be April 15th, 2017. 

Suggestions for papers (c. 20-30 minutes) should be sent to :
Dr. Birgitta Hoffmann, Roman Gask Project. (latinteacher@btinternet.com) or directly director.romangaskproject@yahoo.com.

Thoughts upon Reading "Shaky Ground: Context, Connoisseurshop and the History of Roman Art" by Elizabeth Marlowe....

About 10 years ago I started getting interested in the 18th-century origins of Roman archaeology, the Grand Tour and art collecting. It started out as something that I did as a way to relax, but as I spend more time with it (and got better at it), I have become to appreciate how much this period still defines how we think about certain objects and about how we see the Roman Empire and the objects that the Romans chose to surround themselves with. So, when I came back from the University Library this week, I had found a book on Context, Connoisseurship and the History of Roman Art, I thought it might make a good weekend read, to get a critical assessment of Connoisseurship today.

To say it straight from the start, for those who have done Ancient, esp. Roman Art History as part of their archaeology in a conservative university, the arguments in this book may be a little bit heretical, and your local art appreciation group will not love you for citing it too much in a public lecture, but I think it is a book whose time has come.

The origin of Roman Archaeology is the appreciation of Greek and Roman artworks by the collectors of the 17th and 18th century (connoisseurship). Since Winkelmann (1764) we know that we should appreciate this art for its various styles and the ideas and technical expertise that it expresses and that these styles flow from one to the other. However, we were also told, that Greek art is good and that Hellenistic art is less good and that Roman art is pretty derivative (and let's not talk about Late Antiquity). There are not many today, that would subscribe to the latter view.

But the method he and his contemporaries developed, which focused on the evaluation of art works of and in themselves is one of the mainstays of the discipline and until recently there has been comparatively little methodological criticism. In an archaeological world, where methodological self-reflection abounds these days, this may seem surprising, but as archaeologists know, there is so much to do in our field, if you don't fit in, just move to another area, where you do. So, perhaps that is why.

But this dearth of self-reflection is where Elizabeth Marlowe's book comes in. She asks why in Roman Art History do we value objects without finds contexts so much? Why, despite our increasing understanding of the substantial changes that especially the 18th-century art market and collectors made to the original finds, do we treat these old finds as canonical and make them the centrepieces of our art histories? Why at the same time do ensembles of well-preserved sculpture from well-documented excavations find it so hard to make their way into the surveys of Roman art history and the general consciousness of the discipline?

Using carefully chosen examples Marlowe takes us through the history of some of the objects, as well as a history of connoisseurship. She talks about the problems of some of these approaches in Art History in general as well as the question how this may be linked to decisions in the design of museums on the one hand and the art market (both legal and illegal) on the other. She also presents cases (such as the Charioteer from Motye), where modern finds from well-documented excavations have very much transformed our understanding of art history, because of the surprising contexts in which they were found.

Marlowe is presenting the argument for a changing approach and thus the account is partisan - as it should be. It is not her role to make the case for the defence.

I am not wholeheartedly endorsing the book, but she makes some very valid points about some of our blind spots, and I am happy to own some of them. I can (and have) happily spend an hour at the Palazzo Altemps enjoying the Battle sarcophagus for its beauty, its craftmanship and happily playing 'snap' with a friend trying to parallel some of the elements with other art works. I did not really care, that I am still not really sure where it was originally found, nor that I have never checked the evidence of the claim that it is an Imperial sarcophagus. Given the stringency and demands for evidence with which I approach so much of the rest of my work, this should have made me worried, and Elizabeth Marlowe is right, one should check and not take for granted, and I if nothing else it is a nicely delivered call to discipline.

But with many new approaches to any field, one should be aware that this is not a case for completely abandoning the old or connoisseurship as a whole. For starters, it is debatable that this would be even possible. Connoisseurship of the object, stratigraphy of the context and typology of the assemblage are three of the basic approaches in archaeology. The thought processes of these methods and the interpretations that they have spawned are everywhere and frequently not even understood by the casual (or sometimes even the expert) reader. Marlowe uses the example of third-century art being identified as less refined and thus (in our eyes) less successful art being attributed to the third century. The original reasoning used the judgments to the retrospective elite literature of the fourth century, and still rarely relies on finds that are securely located in (post-Severan) third-century contexts. A claim that can be found in most art history overviews is, therefore, it could be argued, not supported by any verifiable evidence.
But in a world where an introduction to Roman art does not necessarily go side by side with a study of the style and characteristics of the fourth-century literature, this is not necessarily apparent to every reader, especially if the majority of books will repeat the statement and thus it will probably take a lifetime to seem these statement replaced with less generalising, evidence-based insights, even if a concerted effort is made.

We have in the last twenty years in archaeology seen a large number of paradigm shifts, where some of the very basics of the discipline were moved in such a way. Those familiar with these debates will remember the glacial speed with which these changes happened and how often, you find the old orthodoxy suddenly starting up again. It will be interesting to watch, where connoisseurship of Ancient Art will be 20 years from now.

Literature:
Elizabeth Marlowe (2013), Shaky Ground. Context, Connoisseurship and the History of Roman Art. Debates in Archaeoogy. London/New Delhi/New York/Sydney: Bloomsbury. ISBN: 978-0-71564-064-7. 168pp. 

Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1764), Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums. Digital version:
http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/winckelmann1764.

What happened to all the British lead?

Leadd ingot in the Grosvenor Museum,
Chester  (foto: B.Hoffmann)

The lead industry of Roman Britain is a well-studied field. From the study of the inscription on the Lead ingots in Roman Inscriptions of Britain, to the numerous mining archaeological studies on the lead mines throughout Britain from the Mendips in the South, to the Flintshire hills and their association with the Legio XX in Chester to the Lead mines in the Pennines in Derbyshire and in the northern Pennines around the Roman fort of Whitley Castle to the more recently recognized exploitation of the lead and silver in the Scottish Lowlands around Drumlanrig.

Britain is rich in silver and even richer in lead, especially as many of the local ores, such as galena, contain both. But where did it all go to? It is an interesting fact that Romano-British sites, especially military ones, produce more lead than many of their continental counterparts, but this only accounts for a small part of what must have been produced in the 300 odd years of Roman mining in the island. 

A recent article by the team of the Bergbau Museum Bochum and the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) is actually shedding an interesting spotlight on this issue. During their work on the Corpus of Roman lead ingots they catalogued six lead ingots from a shipwreck in Corsica, that had stamped inscriptions of the Legio VI Victrix (for most of its history stationed in York), and are thus likely to have originated in Britain.

They complement four further French ingots from Cabillonum/Chalons-sur-Saone and Lillebonne/Juliobona, whose cast inscriptions allow them to be dated to 197/198AD after the victory of Septimius Severus over Clodius Albinus and which have been known for a long time. Some of these mention Legio XX from Chester (CIL XIII 2612b, p. 409)

Lead isotope analysis suggests an origin of the lead of these ingots from either the Mendips or the Flint mountains, while the silver-lead relationship suggests that they may not have been desilvered. 

This has a number of interesting implications: First of all, it shows that the army continued to be involved in the exploitation of lead after the first century, possibly even in the Mendip hills, where civilian contractors are known in the first century AD.

The suggestion that the lead may not have been desilvered, furthermore, suggests that by the third century at least some of the mining was actually targeting the lead itself, and was no longer just seen as a very useful byproduct of the silver mining. 

The occurrence of the British lead in Gaul and off the coast of Corsica also shows that at least by the third century lead (and not just the more valuable silver and gold) were exported from Britain, certainly as far as the Mediterranean and possible even for use at Rome itself (Corsica is on a well-travelled route from the South of France to the harbours of Central Italy, especially Ostia). Given the weight of the ingots and the fact that there are lead deposits closer to the Italy (eg. along the Rhine and in Spain), this may surprise and it would be easy to see this as an exception in the aftermath of the Clodius Albinus uprising. 

On the other hand the trade route from the Atlantic ports via the large French rivers (most famously the Garonne, but also perhaps the Loire and Seine) was well established since at least the Iron Age and the lead may have provided an interesting heavy export article that could serve as ballast as well as trade good on the return journey of the ships bringing Mediterranean wine and oil to Britain. 

Further Reading:

B.Jones and D.Mattingly (1990), An Atlas of Roman Britain. Oxford: Blackwell.

Norbert Hanel - Peter Rothenhöfer - Michael Bode - Andreas Hauptmann, Britannisches Blei auf dem Weg nach Rom. Die Metallversorgung der Reichsmetropole am Beginn der Herrschaft des L. Septimius Severus. Skyllis 13,1, 2013, 38-42.