Roman Wall Research Articles

The Bazaar at Istanbul

TH E significance of Istanbul as a total physical monument to the cultural bridge between East and West need not be documented here. Citing the names Byzantium, Constantinople, and Istanbul recalls the ebb and flow of history as the city evolved from ancient times, its importance determined by its strategic location. There are a remarkable number of vestiges of the past which still exist, such as the remnants of the late Roman Wall of Theodosius and the

Geoelectrical Surveying of Archaeological Sites

Archaeologists have for some time been employing geoelectric resistivity methods to locate buried remains in order to avoid wasteful trial-and-error excavations. The results have been successful in some cases, but unexpectedly disappointing in others. The purpose of this paper is to indicate some of the peculiar difficulties which arise when applying the usual techniques suitable for deep surveys to the location of resistance anomalies buried at relatively shallow depths below the surface. The difficulties which have been experienced depend mainly on the fact that, for small electrical resistance discontinuities at shallow depths, factors arise which are negligible with deep surveys. In other words, when the dimensions and depth of an anomaly (such as a cist in a Bronze-age tumulus or the buried foundations of a Roman Wall) are comparable with the distance between the electrodes, then the usual theoretical assumptions underlying deep surveys need to be re-examined.

The Antonine Wall, 1934–1959

The publication in 1934 of the second edition of Sir George Macdonald's Roman Wall in Scotland marked the end of an era in the study of the Antonine Wall. The interest in systematic exploration aroused by the Glasgow Archaeological Society's investigations of 1890–3 gained momentum during the years that followed; and by 1934 the structural nature of the Wall had been determined and its course for the most part accurately mapped, while excavation, often on an elaborate scale, had been carried out in the majority of the known forts along its line. With much of this activity Macdonald was personally associated, and his masterly synthesis of the results will always be an indispensable reference-work for those who labour in the same field.

Caistor, Lincolnshire—1959

SummaryThis report describes sections cut through the Roman wall of Caistor, and includes a new survey of the outline of the walled area, as surmised from the evidence given by these sections and by field-work.

The use of radioactive tracers in the study of passive films on metals

This study attempts to establish the advantages and limitations of the combined use of portable UV–Vis-FORS and XRF-XRD portable equipment for the non-invasive characterisation of pigments from Roman wall paintings from Seville, Spain, dated to the first and second century AD. XRD revealed the presence of calcite, dolomite and aragonite, indicating the colour white. Egyptian blue was identified using FORS and XRF, and additional information was obtained with XRD. For the colour green, FORS and mainly FTIR and colorimetry enabled the distinction between glauconite and celadonite, although other techniques were necessary to classify all components of the green areas by determining the presence of cuprorivaite, chlorite and chromium. For the colours yellow and red, the presence of goethite, yellow ochre, cinnabar and haematite was confirmed using FORS and XRF in some cases; the results were corroborated by XRD. Chromatic characterisation and the values of inflection points of FORS spectra enabled a better differentiation between reddish colours (orange, brown, purple and pink). The XRD and XRF techniques revealed that violet was created by mixing red haematite and Egyptian blue and slight variations in FORS spectra confirmed this.

Phyllis Williams Lehmann, Roman Wall Paintings from Boscoreale in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Monographs of Archaeology and Fine Arts, v). Cambridge, Mass.: Archaeological Institute of America, 1953. Pp.XVI + 230, 42 plates, 81 text-figs. £4 10s.

Phyllis Williams Lehmann, Roman Wall Paintings from Boscoreale in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Monographs of Archaeology and Fine Arts, v). Cambridge, Mass.: Archaeological Institute of America, 1953. Pp.XVI + 230, 42 plates, 81 text-figs. £4 10s. - Volume 45 Issue 1-2

Phyllis Williams Lehmann,Roman Wall Paintings from Boscoreale in the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Phyllis Williams Lehmann,<i>Roman Wall Paintings from Boscoreale in the Metropolitan Museum of Art</i>

Roman Wall Paintings from Boscoreale in the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Roman Wall Paintings from Boscoreale in the Metropolitan Museum of Art

ROMAN WALL PAINTINGS FROM BOSCOREALE IN THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART. By Phyllis Williams Lehmann, with an appendix by Herbert Bloch. Published by the Arch. Institute of America, Cambridge, Mass., 1953, XIV+230 PP., 42 plates, 58 figs. in text. 12 dollars.

ROMAN WALL PAINTINGS FROM BOSCOREALE IN THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART. By Phyllis Williams Lehmann, with an appendix by Herbert Bloch. Published by the Arch. Institute of America, Cambridge, Mass., 1953, XIV+230 PP., 42 plates, 58 figs. in text. 12 dollars. - Volume 28 Issue 109

Roman Wall Paintings from Boscoreale in the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Roman Wall Paintings from Boscoreale in the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Roman Wall Paintings from Boscoreale in the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Roman Wall Paintings from Boscoreale in the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Roman Wall Paintings from Boscoreale in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. By Phyllis Williams Lehmann.

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsRoman Wall Paintings from Boscoreale in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. By Phyllis Williams Lehmann.Margarete BieberMargarete Bieber Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by American Journal of Archaeology Volume 57, Number 3July 1953 The journal of the Archaeological Institute of America Views: 3Total views on this site Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/500076 Views: 3Total views on this site Copyright © 1953 by the Archaeological Institute of America. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Roman Wall Paintings from Boscoreale in the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Roman Wall Paintings from Boscoreale in the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Handbook to the Roman Wall. By J. Collingwood Bruce. Tenth edition, ed. by Ian A. Richmond. 7¼ × 4¾. Pp. ix + 236, numerous text-figures and end map. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Andrew Reid and Co., 1947. 10s. 6d. - Roman Britain (Britain in Pictures, no. 113). By Ian Richmond. 8¾ × 6¼. Pp. 48, 8 plates in colour and 22 illustrations in

Handbook to the Roman Wall. By J. Collingwood Bruce. Tenth edition, ed. by Ian A. Richmond. 7¼ × 4¾. Pp. ix + 236, numerous text-figures and end map. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Andrew Reid and Co., 1947. 10<i>s</i>. 6<i>d</i>. - Roman Britain (Britain in Pictures, no. 113). By Ian Richmond. 8¾ × 6¼. Pp. 48, 8 plates in colour and 22 illustrations in

St Thomas in European History

The ruined Parthenon, as it stands in the lucid splendour of the Athenian sky, enshrines for us not the adolescent worship for which it was designed but the philosophy and art of ancient Greece. It stands as their symbol. In the grove of Mambre, four millennia old, is the tomb of Abraham, our father, where obedience to the one high God lies sleeping until we are all gathered to his bosom. The Roman wall, the arch at Trier, the inscription on the Iron Gates of the Danube, the temples at Baalbek and Timgad, the aqueduct at Segovia, are adequate representatives of the militarism, sanitation and civic creed of Rome. Together these three influences built up the background for the Christian revelation; the basilica of St Peter is reared upon these mighty foundations and transcends them. Europe, as we understand it, is the work of the Catholic Church, and we can ask ourselves today . . . where, then, is the abiding memorial of the greatest of the Church’s intellects, St Thomas Aquinas? Where is the temple of the Solomon of the West?As the eye looks eastward from the cliffs of Dover to embrace the territory of Europe, it picks out certain well-defined characteristics. The first is the appropriateness of the Roman boundaries, the Rhine and the Danube, with a possible extension to the Carpathians. Beyond these rivers and mountains stretch the vast plains which run into Asia, where Confucius and Mahomet and the Buddha rule instead of Abraham, Socrates and Justinian.

J. Collingwood Bruce, Handbook to the Roman Wall. Tenth edition, edited by Ian A. Richmond. Newcastle upon Tyne: Andrew Reid and Co., Ltd., 1947. Pp. IX + 236, with frontispiece, numerous diagrams and map. 10s. 6d.

J. Collingwood Bruce, Handbook to the Roman Wall. Tenth edition, edited by Ian A. Richmond. Newcastle upon Tyne: Andrew Reid and Co., Ltd., 1947. Pp. IX + 236, with frontispiece, numerous diagrams and map. 10s. 6d.

A Museum of the Roman Wall: An Appeal

WHILE some, at least, of the advantages of an adequate display for relics from the Roman Wall must be obvious to every layman who gives the matter a thought, only an archæologist can appreciate to the full both the hindrances to Romano-British studies of the present arrangements, as well as the benefits which would follow from the appropriate grouping of the collections in premises dedicated to this sole purpose. Mr. Ian A. Richmond, lecturer in Romano-British archæology in the University of Durham, in a review in The Times of August 29 of the present position, touches upon both aspects of the matter in putting forward a plea for better accommodation for at least some of the collections under the custody of the University of Durham. At present the relics from the Wall are divided between three principal museums, the Blackgate at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Tullio House at Carlisle, and Chesters on the Wall itself. These museums are both overcrowded and ill-adapted to the requirements of modern display. In particular, the Blackgate, the medieval gateway of the Castle, is the most urgent problem. Once a debtors’ prison, it is dark and gloomy, yet it contains the collections of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, which now have been in existence for more than a century and are the most important source of information on the Wall and its area.

Mycenean Athens

THE discovery at Athens of a chamber-tomb of Mycenean age, which presumably had served for a royal burial, corroborates tradition, but at the same time necessitates a new orientation in assessing the importance of the settlement of Attica in early pre-classical times. The chamber was brought to light in the course of the present—the ninth—season of excavation on the Acropolis by the American School of Classical Studies. In a preliminary account of the discovery (Illustrated London News, July 22), Prof. T. L. Shear of Princeton University, field-director of the excavation, states that the tomb is situated in shallow accumulations of deposit on the northern slope of the Acropolis. It consists of a rectangular chamber, filled with splintered rock and approached by a dromos, or passage, some 45 ft. in length, but which originally may have been longer, as the outer end is cut by the Roman wall. The earth-filling of this passage contained a number of Mycenean potsherds. Both passage and burial chamber had been cut from the rock; and the entrance to the chamber from the passage is through a rock-cut doorway. This doorway was closed by carefully packed stones, which clearly had not been disturbed since they were placed in position.

Proposed Museum of the Roman Wall

Proposed Museum of the Roman Wall

Proposed Museum of Romano-British Archæology

LORD EUSTACE PEBCY, Rector of the Newcastle Division of the University of Durham, has issued an appeal for funds for the erection of a Museum of Romano-British Archaeology, devoted to the area of the Roman Wall at Newcastle-on-Tyne, in connexion with the University of Durham. The proposal arises out of a recommendation of the Standing Commission on Museums and Galleries made two years ago, which had in view the need both of facilities for study of the area of the Wall and also of the requirements of the magnificent collections of Romano-British antiquities belonging to the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle, the main source of information concerning the Roman frontier in Britain and settlements adjacent, which have been brought together in the course of the last hundred years, and are now somewhat inadequately housed in the medieval Black Gate of the Castle. The Society has generously expressed its willingness to place its collections at the disposal of the University for this purpose, subject to certain conditions. Although the erection of such a museum had been contemplated in the projected building scheme of the University, it had been set aside for the moment in view of more urgent needs; but it has now been brought within the range of practicable proposals by the offer of a grant of £5,000 from the University Grants Committee, provided the further sum required to make up the total estimated expenditure of £20,000 is raised within a period of two years. The Museum will not be confined to Romano-British antiquities but will include all relics obtained from the area of the Wall, both prehistoric and of post-Roman date down to the Norman conquest. Subscriptions are being received by Lord Eustace Percy at King's College, Newcastle-on-Tyne, 2.