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Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.
(06-14-2016, 02:03 PM)John1 Wrote: 2016 Franco German production on the topic;
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl-djb8C5Jg


Looks like that's the same 'Celts' programme that was on BBC last autumn, featuring Mike Loades and his strange battlefield description!
Nathan Ross
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John 1 wrote:

"I'm not sure how they draw their conclusion though"  - Nathan

"agreed, I didn't see a compelling logic."  - John



I would agree with both of you - you would expect SP to fortify and rebuild London ASAP as the main trading port and a few months would seem sufficient.

Interestingly it would seem that Verulamium was functioning fully by AD62 supplying Londonium with supplies - so does this imply that it was hardly attacked in the first instance or that the original populace was able to move back to rebuild,  plant and harvest their crops and reform their trading infrastructure including grain stores towards the end of AD61?

Deryk
    
Deryk
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(06-19-2016, 02:22 PM)Theoderic Wrote: does this imply that it was hardly attacked in the first instance 
    

I believe the destruction evidence at St Albans is fairly limited - half of a row of buildings / wooden portico burned but the other half left standing, and some damage to another building - that's about it. If we didn't have another explanation, it would look like the result of an accidental fire...

Of course, there could be a lot more that we don't know about, but I've suggested that the attack on St Albans was mentioned by Tacitus for some other reason than the extent of the damage (i.e. it was important in the larger picture of the campaign! [Image: wink.png] )
Nathan Ross
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(06-19-2016, 02:44 PM)Nathan Ross Wrote: I believe the destruction evidence at St Albans is fairly limited

It has been suggested that this indicates that Verulamium was at that time still an emerging town and that there were not many 'Roman' buildings for the rebels to destroy. I'm not sure how far I go along with this. I would have thought that, if the rebels wanted to show the inhabitants which side their bread was buttered, they would have destroyed everything. Perhaps they made their point by burning the properties of the local elite outside the town or maybe there was something going on that we do not understand.
Michael King Macdona

And do as adversaries do in law, -
Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.
(The Taming of the Shrew: Act 1, Scene 2)
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or the whole "Burning of St Albans" write up was an insurance scam.....

what's the best paper to source on the issue? where did you (Nathan) get the "half of a row of buildings / wooden portico burned but the other half left standing"

I imagine you can collect grain from local independent suppliers and export it again from little more than a camp if needs must.
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(06-19-2016, 05:52 PM)John1 Wrote: or the whole "Burning of St Albans" write up was an insurance scam.....

what's the best paper to source on the issue? where did you (Nathan) get the "half of a row of buildings / wooden portico burned but the other half left standing"

I imagine you can collect grain from local independent suppliers and export it again from little more than a camp if needs must.

Certainly a valid point but it does mention "20 loads of provisions" and not grain which indicates a range of different goods - which may suggest that there was a substantial civilian trading infrastructure in place, certainly that this is no longer a military zone but a town that was able to feed itself enough to export goods elsewhere in the province.
Deryk
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(06-19-2016, 05:52 PM)John1 Wrote: where did you (Nathan) get the "half of a row of buildings / wooden portico burned but the other half left standing"

I thought it was in Hingley's Iron Age Warrior Queen, but while he gives a plan and projection of a row of workshops and porticos, he doesn't suggest (as I thought) that they'd been burned. He does mention a bronze statue possibly being destroyed - although that may have been post-damnatio Nero!

I may have been remembering Bedoyere's Buildings of Roman Britain, which I think logged the burning evidence from Verulamium - I don't have his book any more, but I recall there was destruction in certain insula and not in others, indicating a fairly cursory (or maybe targeted) sort of sacking!

Most sources mention the rather limited destruction evidence. Aldhouse-Green's Boudica Britannia notes that 15 years elapsed between one workshop being burned and its subsequent rebuilding, which might suggest that some places took quite a while to recover!
Nathan Ross
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Birgitta Hoffmann (The Roman Invasion of Britain: Archaeology versus History, Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2013, 102), quoting R. Niblett, Verulamium, The Roman City of St. Albans, Stroud: Tempus, 2001, 67, says: 'At Verulamium the only buildings that were definitely destroyed at about this time were the workshops in insula XIV; the bathhouse in insula XIX may also have been damaged but not totally destroyed.'
Michael King Macdona

And do as adversaries do in law, -
Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.
(The Taming of the Shrew: Act 1, Scene 2)
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(06-19-2016, 08:01 PM)Renatus Wrote: the workshops in insula XIV; the bathhouse in insula XIX

Thanks! Yes, that was what I was thinking of. I'm pretty sure I've seen a plan - presumably of Insula XIV - showing the burned section shaded, but I might have imagined that.

Anyway, assuming the damage is related to revolt, we seem to be looking at a fairly brief trashing rather than a comprehensive destruction (Hingley also mentions a mass of broken pottery, apparently thrown from one of the workshop porticos).

There are various ways to interpret this, of course, but I prefer to think that, after evacuating the town, Paulinus and his troops withdrew only ten miles or so to a defensive site in the close vicinity; the Britons, understanding the threat that he posed them, paused only long enough for some limited looting and burning before moving out against him.
Nathan Ross
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Verulamium is very interesting, if a tiny bit off topic by some measures. We were having a look at the Windridge slingstones in the pub the other night and trying to give them some context. 

finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/record/id/457076

Strangely Google Maps current satellite image of the area (PC not Mac) appears to show a potential fort shaped ditch and potential villa at Windridge Farm, just North of, and aligned with, the South West access road to the city. 

   

   

Check out the gateway with the damp patch still running through it, maybe.

   

Presumably the ditch will turn out to be Monument 1596656, although there is another candidate just to the south on Flash, we'll see when I get the oblique aerial it was originally identified from http://www.pastscape.org.uk/hob.aspx?hob_id=1596656

So if there was this stonking great (3-4 ha) fort/camp outside St Albans presumably that would provide the swiftly re-established security for new trade passing through the site. Anyone know anything about this "maybe fort" and "maybe villa"? 

Seems to be a similar set up to the Water Newton (Durobrivae) site with the fort just beyond the gates, but the St Albans one might have a clearer Boudiccan story to tell if it's ever been dug.

http://www.independents.org.uk/conferenc...durobrivae

We also located a couple of previously unknown henges, until we realised I'd been using the tablet as a beer mat.... doooow!


124804


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Whilst looking for a corollary to the Windridge ditch I had a look at the crop marks of the known fort at Water Newton. They were a very similar in dimension and inner corner angles, but then it was pointed out to me that the Fort was actually seveal hundred metres East of the crop marks I had mis-identified.
 
I may be clutching at straws, but do these two crop marks look like Roman military to anyone?
Is it possible that this set of ditches under the A1 directly south of Water Newton village is another camp? 
Could the similarities in dimension and corner angle suggest the Water Newton crop marks and those at Windridge are camps are of the same date?
Could they have beeen the camps of Paulinus set up followng the Boudiccan campaign? 


The Water Newton known fort is top right, squarish field with visble road crossing and trees on eastern boundary, the crop marks in question are the double ditch in green south of the road
   

Zoom on crop marks
   

Water Newton and Windridge compared for scale
   

126729
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(08-09-2016, 08:30 AM)John1 Wrote: do these two crop marks look like Roman military to anyone?... Could they have beeen the camps of Paulinus set up followng the Boudiccan campaign?

Possibly, although the angles look a bit sharp. It's probably impossible to say without a bit of excavation.

Either could be Roman military, but there are plenty of other earthwork-type features across Britain dating from all sorts of eras. Cattle enclosures, villa and estate boundaries, earlier and later fortifications...

We already know that the Roman army was active all along this Watling Street route over several decades, though, so identifying a couple of extra forts wouldn't be particularly telling for our purposes, I think.
Nathan Ross
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(08-09-2016, 08:30 AM)John1 Wrote: I may be clutching at straws, but do these two crop marks look like Roman military to anyone?
Like any ditch, they could be Roman period but they are not like any temporary camp I've seen.

(08-09-2016, 08:30 AM)John1 Wrote: The Water Newton known fort is top right, squarish field with visble road crossing and ditches and trees on eastern boundary, the crop marks in question are the double ditch in green south of the road.

Not at all like any temporary Roman encampment I've seen.
Oh the grand oh Duke Suetonius, he had a Roman legion, he galloped rushed down to (a minor settlement called) Londinium then he galloped rushed back again. Londinium Bridge is falling down, falling down ... HOLD IT ... change of plans, we're leaving the bridge for Boudica and galloping rushing north.
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John1
[quote pid='338157' dateline='1470731428']
Is it possible that this set of ditches under the A1 directly south of Water Newton village is another camp? 

[/quote]

Yes. The cropmarks are known and have been plotted continuing north of the A1. If we could see more of it we might have a better idea, but an early camp seems quite possible.


   
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stevemalone pid='338201' dateline='1470824763']John1
[quote pid='338157' dateline='1470731428']
Is it possible that this set of ditches under the A1 directly south of Water Newton village is another camp? 

[/quote]

Yes. The cropmarks are known and have been plotted continuing north of the A1. If we could see more of it we might have a better idea, but an early camp seems quite possible.


[/quote]

Thanks for this Steve, what is the source of the plan?

it would appear the ditches are visible to a returning corner on Google in the field immediately to the West

   

return at point of arrow

   
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