Melvadius

But you could at least visit museums which have Roman antiquities in their collections. That might not count as a Roman site but at least as something Roman, right? ;-) I read somewhere a few years back that the Hermitage in St Petersburg (or whatever it is being called now) has the only extant example of a vexillation standard which, if I remember correctly, was found in a Roman-Egyptian burial. I really must check if that is correct one of these days

A smashing programme . . . I was frankly gobsmacked that it didn't receive much in the way of attention on this forum. Then again, I didn't bother to mentioned it myself. I did mention that it was coming up in a couple of postings before the event as well as providing a short update following seeing it on the 'brothel' Villa thread. I do have to admit that in the event with a submission deadline for my dissertation looming I almost managed to miss it myself but luckily caught most of it the first time round As you say it covered some very interesting sites and finds from the last year of British Archaeology. The pre-histroy programme was equally interesting and with Anglo-Saxons' tonight that should be another goodie Now I wonder what they could possibly mention in that....possibly something to do with the Midlands ??? . Mind you I am slightly confused from looking at the BBC site if this will be episode 3 of 4 or if there really are '5 programmes [in the series] coming up' although that appears to just be the next five time slots adn channels the next programme will be shown on over the next week. N.B. From looking at Dr Roberts BBC blog it appears that the last programme will cover the Tudor period.

I suppose strictly speaking I should say London for the same reason but it has to be a certain Romano-British Temple complex in a field a short way from Abingdon last July which we have one more year of excavation to try and unpick before the report writing starts in earnest.

The BBC have picked up on the recent donation of an extremely rare Roman bronze lantern to Ipswich Museum which was apparently found during a metal detecting rally. Reuters is also carrying the story and have a couple of photographs of the find (only one was used in the BBc article) they also mention that the lamp appeared on the first programme in the new 'Digging for Britain' series on BBC. What is not in either articles, as far as I can see, is something mentioned in the programme that the lamp base had been repaired with a replacement foot from another lamp welded on sometime during the Roman period. If anyone missed the first episode on Roman Britain which included mention of the lamp as well as other recent finds, including the Frome Horde and the child burials at Hambledon Villa 'brothel' suggestion, it is still available to be watched on BBC iplayer for another 15 days (from 2/9/10). Unfortunately I believe this service is only available if you are in Britain.

English Heritage have reported that the long dry early summer combined with the flight restrictions imposed by the Icelandic volcanic eruption have provided a double benefit to their ongoing aerial photographic record of Britain. The combination has directly led to a large number of new discoveries, including a previously unknown Roman marching camp in Devon and much stronger late third century Roman fortifications built near Tadcaster in Yorkshire. Aerial photography is very dependent on both soil and weather conditions with parch marks visible from the air notoriously fleeting. Because of both the extended dry period while crops were growing and the commercial airline restrictions on flights a lot more survey flights were therefore possible in basically ideal conditions not seen since 1976. The flights were able to be undertaken in many areas that normally provide little in the way of images including areas with clay soils and some in close proximity to major commercial airports where survey flights are normally either banned or very curtailed in scope.

SpiegelOnline International have a very interesting article and associated photographs on a little known aspect of Northern European culture the Danevirke (work of the Danes) which "is considered the largest earthwork in northern Europe" (sic). I suppose it is if you don't count the Antonine Wall as being in Northern Europe or if it considered as possibly the longest section of 'surviving' earthworks . And before anyone asks I have not come across the surveying equipment being used in photograph six so I cannot tell you what it is called. However looking at it I suspect it may operate in a similar way to the old 'Rotadraw' system enabling the archaeologists to make accurate scale drawings of the section they have cut in the wall. In my experience most archaeologists make do with basically doing it freehand with a grid and tape measures.

I think there is something not quite right in the the Giveaway forum. I just looked there and unless my home PC is acting up everything seems to have a 'last post' date and time of today at 10:07AM. I haven't noticed this problem with any other forum so far.

I have just realised that our personal information when we make posts no longer carries our location. Was this a deliberate change or is it something else which has been lost in the transfer? EDIT - I worry slightly that the personal information box on posts seems to move further and further to the right apparently depending on the length of an individuals name. Unless there is a wrap-around option which kicks if names get too long or a 'character' limit on the length of individuals names (or at least if the limit is quite long) this could potentially lead to the actual box on the right hand side in which the post appears becoming very narrow. There is also a 'relatively' minor issue when viewing the 'Active Content' list that when running my pointer over the lsit of names they seem to move up and down on the page slightly, there also seems to be a link icon which my browser cannot pick up correctly.

Archaeology Magazine has an interesting article on the Cult of Mithras The article ends with a summary of recent discoveries of Mithraea from several sites across the Roman Empire.

The active users list also seems to be getting back to normal as well so looks like you are starting to get on top of at least some of the snags following the upgrade.

For anyone who hasn't found it so far; if you go to the top level of the 'forums' screen then page down to the very bottom there should be a row of four buttons: Today's active content The moderating team Today's top 20 posters Overall top posters Just before the 'Todays Birthday's' announcements. 'Todays' Active Content' is probably the equivalent of the 'View New Posts' button.

More information has been released about this ongoing research tying in with the new BC documentary series 'Digging for Britain' An article in a local newspaper Bucks Free Press under the title "Skeleton of 'dismembered' child discovered by Chiltern Arcaeologists" gives a bit more of the story:

Well here are a few that I have noticed: The last post information on the top level seems to quote a reference number rather than the date and time of the posting which is somewhat confusing. Because of the above I may be wrong but we seem to have lost most if not all of the last few days postings. [Edit - we actually seem to have lost all postings made on the old forum after 11 August] I was working on creating a new gallery but cannot currently actually 'see' the images although they seem to have been listed and I can still read the text I had put in for each. [EDIT] - I would also agree with the point made by GhostofClayton that as far as the members home pages are concerned the changes do not appear to have been for the better. The layout is confusing, with some of the information including who has recently visited now buried at the bottom of a couple of 'page downs'. As you can probably see from this post there are also some unexpected issue with how messages are displayed - particularly if you include 'quotes' such as the one I included from Viggens' original post on this threaad. In addition when I looked at the 'gallery' option there was no obvious system to the selection of images which were shown from my active galleries. Only six images were shown from one gallery but they did not appear to have been automatically aligned in any way).

If you haven't already you may find 'The Roman Army, 31 BC - AD 337 A Sourcebook' by Brian Campbell a useful source; not least for the fact that several of the Praetorian memorials listed there seem to indicate the fact that they could have a varied career both before joining and after leaving the praetorians.

Not having seen a full size version of this work I did wonder from what I could see if this Victorian 'gem' was alluding to the Britons having been acting as 'forced' labour to build the wall rather than it being built by the Roman military as is generally now believed happened. It is possibly indicative that there does not appear to be either weapons or armour stacked about ready for the builders (wearing 'leather' trews) to put on. There does however seem to be some form of military 'guard' presence (white tunics and armour) in the background apparently fighting off attackers while the 'builders' lounge about or continue working on the wall.

Off topic, but I'd love to hear more about this temple complex. I have a few photographs of the excavations which I will try and post on the gallery when I look them out but full details of the Marcham Frilford Temple complex excavations, including the last 10 years of interim site reports, can be read at the Oxford University Vale and Ridgeway Project website. If you read these in sequence you can sometimes see how interpretations of elements of the site slowly shifted as more was learnt about it and the lead archaeologists tried to integrate new (and sometimes almost contradictory) information from each years excavations into previous work. BTW I understand that Britannia, the annual publication of the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies, should be carrying a fuller interim report this year when it comes out in November 2010.

A local North West of England newspaper (The Times & Star) reports on recent geophysical survey work (June 2010)which was carried out after last years serious flooding in the area provided initial evidence for a Romano-British settlement in the area. The survey has revealed that it was much larger than had previously been suspected, there is also currently a chance for locals to get involved in excavations at the site until early September.

It would be helpful if everyone could remember a couple of salient points when you are covering a period of some 7-800 years such as the examples used in the discussion above which have conflated periods in the responses. As mentioned above Vegetius was writing in the late Empire but equally Cannae, which was also quoted, is from the Republican period before the Marian reforms when there was no standing army and each consul had to raise his forces basically from scratch. References and precise dates would be helpful.

I can understand both the attraction and concerns connected with adding the Winterton Cup to the list of 'known' Hadrian's Wall souvenirs. As far as images of the Amien Patera is concerned you will find what seems to be the only freely available image on the net at 'La section gallo-romaine du Mus

Look, I don't care if it is your tea break - we are being attacked, so find your weapons and get fell in.

Welcome to the forum Danny, Late last night I managed a quick look at the start of programme 3 in your series and although I may not be able to get back to it you definately have my sympathy/ admiration for attempting to combine the trip with a TV series. It is not something I would ever attempt, especially as part of a three-hander but you seem to have visited quite a few interesting places along the way and others may find the programmes well worth watching.

Hope you have/had a great day

"...As always, should you or any of your IM force be caught or killed, the Senate will disavow any knowledge of your actions. Good luck, Felix. This tape will self-destruct in five seconds...."