Exhibition of Antiquities from Colchester

Abstract

A SPECIAL exhibition of antiquities from Colchester opened at the British Museum on December 10. The objects exhibited illustrate the results of the five year's exploration carried out on the British and Roman site at Colchester by the Colchester Excava tion Committee, which was formed in 1930 by the British Museum and the Essex and Colchester Museum jointly. The exhibits, which consist of objects obtained by excavation, and plans, drawings and photographs, while giving a general view of the results, serve particularly to illustrate three aspects of the information which five year's work has made it possible to piece together. The first of these is the history of the site, beginning with its first foundation as a British city, then in its period of greatest pros perity under Cunobelinus (A.D. 5), its conquest at the time of the invasion of Claudius (A.D. 43), and its eclipse on the rise of the Roman city seven years later. Apparently the diminished British city shared the fate of the Roman city when the latter was burned by Boudicca in A.D. 61. The photographs of the structural remains discovered and their plans, as well as the series of coins and material remains, are an index of the vicissitudes of the site. The second aspect is the character of native culture at Camulo-dunum; and the third, the effect of the impact of Roman culture on that of the native. To some, this last will appeal as of the greatest interest of all. Many new facts, indeed, have been brought to light at Colchester, not the least important being the data bearing upon the manufacture of Romano-British pottery. The remarkable discovery of the now famous kiln demonstrated that not only did the Romano-British potters make jugs, mortars, etc. in buff ware, slip coated fabric, castor ware, etc., but they also made the well-known Samian or ‘terra sigillata’ of which the manufacture had previously been thought to be confined to Gaul.