Category: Archaeology

Roman Lead-and-Silver Processing Site from Oakenholt

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From the Leader:

WORK at a major building development has unearthed evidence of a Roman settlement.

The discovery at Anwyl Construction’s Croes Atti project at Oakenholt, near Flint, includes a well-preserved section of Roman road, pottery, buildings and evidence of an industrial complex processing lead and silver mined at nearby Halkyn Mountain.

Andy Davies, Anwyl Construction technical director, said: “We have experience of finding Roman remains in the past and we had a watching brief on the site.

“We uncovered the Roman remains quite early in the work. We stripped the top soil away and found something straight away and since then we have been working with local archaeologists.

“They believed there were Roman settlements in the area and archaeological work had been done here before but nothing had been found.”

Anwyl, which plans to build more than 180 houses on the first phase of the Croes Atti development, is now helping fund the three-week exploration of the site, along with Cadw.

Will Walker, of Earthworks Archaeology, said: “It’s a fabulous find and it’s on our doorstep.

“We have a remarkably well-preserved Roman road in good condition and the site is throwing up all manner of interesting things including a lot of lead which suggests it was connected with the lead workings on Halkyn Mountain.

“The lead – and silver – would have been processed at this site, converted into lead ingots, known as pigs, and probably transported to Chester by barge and would have been used in the building trade for pipes and roofing.”

Metal detectors have uncovered large quantities of lead and the probable corner of a building has also been found.

Leigh Dodds, principal archaeologist with Earthworks Archaeology, said: “A large building was excavated further down the road back in the 1970s and that may have been the home of the procurator, the Roman official in charge of this settlement.

“But nothing had been found in this area but there is clear evidence of a settlement with buildings either side of the Roman road.

“There has also been high class Samian-ware pottery, probably made in what is now central France but was then the Roman province of Gaul, and even pieces of stone, basically furnace slag with traces of lead which show this was an industrial site processing lead ore.”

Steve Suddick, development engineer for Anwyl, said: “We started work on the site last week, carrying out groundworks and we started uncovering Roman remains within a day or two.

“We are able to carry on with work on another part of the site so the archaeological investigation can go on here as well so we are working well with them.”

According to this page, in the past, brick/tilestamps of the Legio XX Valeria Victrix have been found in the area, although there’s not evidence of a fort …

Seeking a Roman Theatre in Izmir

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ 1 Comment

From Hurriyet:

The İzmir Metropolitan Municipality has started demolitions on appropriated land in order to unearth a Roman theater under shanty houses in the city’s Kadifekale district. The municipality has so far paid 8 million Turkish Liras for the confiscation of the nearly 13,000-square-meter area.

Eight of the 52 houses to be demolished in the first stage have been torn down and archaeologists have already unearthed the walls of the theater, which has a capacity of 16,000 people.

The most detailed information about the ancient theater in Kadifekale is in the research of Austrian architect Otto Berg and archaeologist Otto Walter, who examined the area in 1917 and 1918, though many researchers have concluded that the remains of the theater have features of the Roman period.

When the municipality revives the theater, it can be seen by those visiting the Konak, Akllsancak, Karşıyaka and Bornova neighborhoods of the city. Similar to the excavated Ephesus Ancient Theater, concerts and shows will be organized in the theater as well.

A book on the theater

Writer İlhan Pınar said that after the translation of Berg and Walter’s work, a book about the ancient theater will be published within a month. “The only source [of information on] this theater is their research. Their goal was to excavate the area after the war in 1917. They wanted to show that İzmir was very rich in history and this historical richness should be protected after being revealed,” he said.

Sybaris Flooded!

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From ANSA comes news of another site which we probably should start being concerned about:

The mayor of Cassano allo Jonio in the southern region of Calabria on Monday appealed to President Giorgio Napolitano for help in tackling the emergency at the local Sybaris archaeological site due to recent flooding.

The ancient remains were overrun by 200,000 cubic metres of water on January 18 after the nearby river Crati burst its banks following heavy rainfall.

Since then the fire and civil protection departments have been working to pump the water out of the site but there is concern over the remaining mud, which could become difficult to remove. Meanwhile numerous individuals and associations have offered to help with clean-up operations and Italy’s academic community has also rallied in support of the site, whose remains testify to the three successive settlements, the Greek colonies of Sybaris and Thurii and the Roman city of Copia, that once stood there. There is concern particularly for the Roman remains (2nd century BC-7th century AD), which lie closest to the surface and are rich in frescoes and mosaics. Here “the force of the water, which covered five hectares in the Parco del Cavallo area, even caused walls to crumble,” site director Silvana Lupino said. The priority now is to quantify the damage, with the cost of restoration possibly running to hundreds of thousands of euros. Lupino said it would “take months” to remove the mud with the help of “specialised teams” in support of the site’s technical staff. The excavations have been temporarily closed to the public although the management hopes they will reopen in time for the summer tourist season.

Big Bucks for Bulgarian Baths!

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It isn’t often that archaeologists get more than ten times the funding they asked for … from the Sofia News Agency:

Bulgarian Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister, Simeon Djankov, has pledged the significant amount of BGN 3 M for restoration and conservation of the historical Roman Baths in the Black Sea city of Varna.

The sum came as a pleasant surprise to archaeologists who have asked for BGN 200 000.

Djankov made the pledge during a discussion organized by the Bulgarian Standard daily in Varna in the frame of the newspaper’s campaign “The Miracles of Bulgaria.”

The Minister stated the idea to provide significant funds under the Via Pontica program was not to give more money for archaeological research, but to make existing archaeological sites more attractive in order to boost tourism. He called on archaeologists to be creative in inventing names and stories around their discoveries.

The program is named after the Via Pontica bird migration flyway.

Djankov noted the Roman Baths are located in the very heart of Bulgaria’s Black Sea capital and are a great tourist attraction, thus the goal would be to make them even more interesting and accessible.

The idea was firmly backed by prominent Bulgarian archaeologist Professor Nikolay Ovcharov, nicknamed the Bulgarian Indiana Jones.

The Finance Ministry’s list of sites for funding includes several medieval fortresses and the former royal palace and now government residence “Evsinograd” near Varna.

Varna Mayor, Kiril Yordanov, noted his city had 125 years of history in tourism, and in recent years the City Hall had slated BGN 11 M of its own funds for cultural events.

The Roman Baths are one of the most valuable monuments of culture in Varna, situated in the central part of the city, on the corner of the streets San Stefano and Khan Krum. This is one of the sites of the Archaeological Museum in the city.

The Public Baths of Odessos are one of the most preserved architectural monuments of the Roman Age in Bulgaria (1st – 4th century AD). They are of the so called “small imperial style” and their construction refers to the end of the 2nd century AD. This is the largest roman bath on the Balkan Peninsula – with an area of 7000 square meters. It is the forth in size in Europe – among the baths of Karakala and Diocletian in Rome and Trevira (Trier, Germany). It was used by the end of 3rd century.