P and a Woodward, Urban Foundation Deposits in RB

Dedicating the Town: Urban Foundation Deposits in Roman BritainAuthor(s): Peter Woodward and Ann WoodwardSource: World Archaeology, Vol. 36, No. 1, The Object of Dedication (Mar., 2004), pp. 68-86Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4128303 .

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Dedicating the town: urban foundation

deposits in Roman Britain

Peter Woodward and Ann Woodward

Abstract

The foundation and birth of a Roman town would have been an important occasion, as well as a political event, both for the local tribal leaders and the imperial government. The processes of urban foundation and development are here explored by examining structured dedicatory deposits within Romano-British urban centres. Following the re-definition of a series of shaft deposits within the town of Dorchester (Durnovaria) as ritual, such repetitive deposits are considered within the context of the symbolism of Roman urban planning, and the dedication rites of the ancient world.

Keywords

Dedication; foundation; Roman town; votive deposits; shafts; symbolism.

Introduction

Our knowledge concerning the foundations of Roman towns in Italy is based on a small number of classical references and the evidence of orthogonal urban planning derived from air photography and excavation. The religious rituals associated with foundation related both to the definition of the boundary of the town and to the orientation of the

orthogonal plan. The former tradition was described by Varro and was based on the ritual that Romulus was said to have employed in the foundation of Rome - after the taking of

auspices, the sacred boundary was defined by a furrow ploughed around the intended area, the plough being lifted at the proposed sites of the gates (Beard et al. 1998: 157, 329). The orientation of the streets and land allotments within the town was determined by professional land surveyors, again after the taking of the appropriate auspices, as described by Hyginus Gromaticus and Frontinus (ibid.: 329, n. 45). According to ancient

religious traditions, orientation was based on the direction of the midday sun (Le Gall

1975). Division of the real world into quarters defined by lines joining the cardinal points had a long ancestry in the Near East, and also became the basis for classical systems of divination (Weinstock 1946; Ward-Perkins 1974: 38). The practical study by Le Gall

R Routledge Taylor & Francis Group

World Archaeology Vol. 36(1): 68-86 The Object of Dedication

? 2004 Taylor & Francis Ltd ISSN 0043-8243 print/1470-1375 online DOI: 10.1080/0043824042000192650



Dedicating the town 69

demonstrated that the basic traditional system of cardinal orientation was modified in

practical terms, in relation to specific topographical features such as slope, existing route

ways or river crossings (Le Gall 1975: 306). Although the concept of orientation appeared to be ignored by the surveyors, their basic rules did reflect the underlying religious principles - in other words, the rigid concept was applied in so far as local topographical conditions would allow. Ward-Perkins viewed the apparent combination of practical and

religious aspects within urban foundation practices as a confusion that was already evident in the time of Varro - in the first century BC (1974: 25). He regarded the surveyors as a professional body whose training was based on the principles of Greek geometry and the Vitruvian principles of architecture (ibid.: 27, 33). Although admitting that the

surveying procedures were interwoven with the prescribed rituals and taking of auspices, Ward-Perkins did not consider that such rituals 'played any serious part in determining the initial location and lay-out of the new city' (ibid.: 39). Archaeologists often term the main east-west and north-south streets of a town as decumanus and cardo, although these terms are more properly confined to the major axes of centuriated land allotments in the Roman countryside (Ward-Perkins 1974: 109-10).

A view of Roman town planning centred more on the traditional and symbolic aspects of foundation practices was developed by Rykwert (1976: chs 1, 2). While embracing the role of economic and practical considerations in the founding of Roman towns, he

emphasized the rituals that he envisaged as becoming 'permanently enshrined in monuments whose physical presence anchored the ritual to the soil and to the physical shape of the roads and buildings' (ibid.: 27). This view is more in accord with arguments that have been advanced over the last decade by some British archaeologists (e.g. Parker Pearson and Richards 1994), arguments that link cosmological and symbolic concepts to the foundation and use of monuments and structures in both the prehistoric and the Roman

periods. Importantly, Rykwert also draws particular attention to a further aspect of traditional urban foundation rituals, again derived from classical descriptions of the Romulus myth (by both Plutarch and Varro). This was the digging of a focal pit or chamber (mundus) into which offerings of first fruits were cast (Warde Fowler 1912: 25; Rykwert 1976: 59). The mundus concept is a contentious one, and the location of such a

pit in Rome unconfirmed, but its siting may have been near to the crossing point of the main urban streets near to the forum in the centre of the town (ibid.). Material evidence for a foundation feature has been recorded at Cosa in Italy (Brown et al. 1960). A high rocky point at the southern extremity of the town formed a visual and ritual focus. In front of the rock-cut footings for the earliest square building or enclosure (dating to 273 BC) lay a natural rectangular crevasse, 2 to 2.5m in depth; and traces of its original filling consisted

largely of carbonized vegetable material. The axis of the square structure ran directly through the crevasse and was related to the orientation of the centuriated land

surrounding the hill (ibid.: 10-11). It was deduced that the crevasse had been used for ritual offerings, and Brown related the structures to the classical concepts of templum and mundus described by Varro, Ovid, Plutarch and Hyginus, with the crevasse functioning as mundus, a hole related to the initial founding of a town and designed to receive offerings of first fruits (ibid.: 13-14).

One way to test the hypothesis that urban foundation rituals actually took place would be to seek hard archaeological evidence for their past enactment. Such evidence might



70 Peter Woodward and Ann Woodward

include the results of detailed studies of the actual orientation of street grids (as initiated by Le Gall 1975), traces of plough furrows beneath later town defences, the occurrence of unusual votive pits (as at Cosa) or evidence of early ritual activity sited near to the main crossroads at the centre of Roman towns. In Roman Britain, the model of a plough team comprising a cow and a bull, recalling the description in Ovid, and found at Piercebridge, Co. Durham, has been interpreted as evidence that the urban foundation ritual of 'ploughing of the first furrow' was known, even if not practised, in Britain (Henig 1984: 29), but otherwise no material evidence for urban foundation rituals in Roman Britain is known either to John Creighton or Richard Reece (pers. comm.). However, on the basis of imagery on coins, Creighton has argued that there was 'a broad acceptance of Roman conceptions of what a town ritually meant within Late Iron Age and early Roman Britain (Creighton 2000: 211).

It is in the light of this situation that our paper will expound a new interpretation of a series of shaft deposits located near to the central street crossing in the town of Dorchester, Dorset, and a connection with the traditional urban foundation rituals of Roman Italy will tentatively be proposed.

Greyhound Yard, Dorchester

Excavations in advance of development near the centre of Roman Dorchester (Durno- varia), the civitas capital of the Durotriges in southern Britain, led to the investigation of a sequence of structures dating from the Neolithic to the post-medieval period. All lay within one of the central insulae of the Roman town (Woodward et al. 1993). The aims of the project at the time of excavation in 1984 were primarily to date the sequence of structural development within the insula and to investigate the economic infrastructure of the town through time. Thus the major pits and shafts encountered were interpreted both during and after excavation as receptacles for rubbish and cess. The excavation techniques, applied in a short-term rescue situation, of necessity involved drastic sampling strategies and the half-sectioning of many of the pits and shafts; some were not investigated in their entirety, and the assemblages that were published and remain available for study are incomplete. However enough was recovered to allow a detailed reinterpretation - that certain shafts at Greyhound Yard were dug to receive placed deposits of ritual

significance, and that these shafts were located in relation to particular structures within the insula, and in relation to a very particular central position within the town as a whole.

Six periods of Roman activity were defined within the insula. Figure 1 combines structural evidence from all six of these, Periods 5 to 10, which are illustrated separately within the excavation monograph (Woodward et al. 1993: figs. 25-30). In Period 5 (AD 60-100), the urban roads were laid out and timber-slot buildings were established on both the northern and eastern road frontages. The largest of these buildings was rectangular building I on the eastern frontage (see Fig. 1). A ditched enclosure, not shown in Figure 1, was set equidistant from each street frontage roughly in the centre of the insula. According to the stratigraphic and ceramic dating evidence, the first deep pits (quarry pits), shafts and wells were cut during Period 6 (AD 75-120). However, it is probable that some of them were first established in Period 5 when the urban roads were being laid out;




SA j~-j - edge of excavation mid-line of roads

........... timber fence

-m stone footings

S-VII buildings A-C enclosures

R. 1-19 O0 pits and shafts

Forum

Baths

Durnovaria 0 00 200 3metres

3\ 0 .8.

MOi ...... i V

17•0 II"I

12 V1 1- - -. 6

A B

i i ------ .-

"= ?

1

VII

0 10 20 30etres

Figure 1 Excavations at Greyhound Yard, Dorchester: shafts and associated structures (Henry Buglass, after Woodward et al. 1993: figs 173, 25-30).

indeed, they may have provided chalk for the foundations of the streets. The ditched enclosure was redefined by a timber fence, enclosure A in Figure 1, with two centrally placed shafts (pits 1 and 2) within it. Pit 1 was conical in section and circular in plan while




Pit 2 was a large and unusual sub-square pit, 2m deep with vertically cut sides and ramped access. Just outside the enclosure, on its eastern side, a row of shafts was established

(shafts 3-7), while a further group of three (Shafts 8-10) lay at its north-eastern corner. To the east of the row of shafts Building I continued in use.

In Period 7 (AD 100-200) the size of the central fenced enclosure was reduced to a

square-sided enclosure 24m across (Fig. 1, B) with the central pit (2) at the centre and an off-set entrance on the eastern side. Beyond a pathway, a second similar fenced enclosure

(C) was laid out to the west. Further shafts were sunk outside the eastern boundary of enclosure B (shafts 11-14) and, just north of these, an unusual rectangular stone-lined feature (15), which probably functioned as a pool, was built. Two new shafts (16 and 17) were added, now outside the northern boundary of the enclosure, in Period 8 (AD 150-300). One of these occupied one corner of the unusual rectangular pit 1. The large timber building I was now replaced in part by a series of stone-footed structures (V and

VI). These were small rectangular buildings, one with a verandah, which possibly performed a domestic function.

Buildings V and VI survived into Period 9 (AD 250-400), when a small square structure

(IV), possibly a walled courtyard, was added. The cobbled floor was burnt in the centre, probably due to the positioning of a brazier, and this structure may have functioned as a domestic shrine. The remnant northern portion of the primary timber building I was now

replaced by a stone-footed aisled hall, building II, and the central enclosed area (B and C) was redefined once more, this time by a stone-footed wall taking in both areas. A new pit (18) was sunk next to the courtyard shrine, building IV. In Period 10 (AD 350-450), an annexe (III) to the aisled hall was erected over the site of the former pool, and the structures to the south were extended and joined to form a single courtyard building; this

comprised three suites of rooms on the west, north and east sides and a well (or shaft) in the centre of the walled courtyard (VII). The corridor of the northern range was floored with opus signinum on which were impressed two human footprints, and a series of infant burials was also recovered from this range. Finally, pit 18 was infilled and replaced by a massive square shaft 19. This occupied a small square annexe to building V; it was linked to courtyard IV and was the only shaft to possess a stone superstructure.

The morphology and fillings of the nineteen shafts are summarized in Table 1, while their detailed nature is illustrated by a consideration of the contents of three of them (Figs 2-3, Plates 1-2). The most apparent feature of the fillings is the occurrence of high numbers of complete or near complete pottery vessels: samian bowls and dishes, Black Burnished Ware jars and bowls and other vessels such as flagons (see Table 1 and Plates

1-2). One shaft (19) also contained a complete bronze jug (Woodward et al. 1993: fig. 66,

80) in its basal deposit, and two of the ceramic vessels bore inscriptions as follows: Vivatis

(Long life to you) on a Rhenish ware motto beaker and Nuticis ([property] of Nutrix) on

the shoulder of a flagon (Tomlin 1993: 284). Other significant finds comprise the skeletons, part skeletons or skulls of a large number of dogs and puppies, bones from joints of lamb or mutton, and relatively high occurrences of bird remains, including entire skeletons. The birds represented most commonly are crows and ravens, with jackdaw also present in two cases. One shaft contained the cranium of a male human skull. Finally, some of the shafts also contained groups of personal items, including jewellery of bronze, bone and shale, gaming counters, coins, spoons and a votive aedicula in lead (from shaft 19: Woodward et



Table 1 Greyhound Yard Dorchester: the shafts and their contents

Number Cut Period Type Plan shape Plan Depth Faunal remains Objects metres metres Associated bone groups

Pots Personal Coins Other

Reconstructed: more than 60%

1 3112 6 Pit Sub-square 4.1 4.1 3.0+ 2.2 2 3762 6 Pit Circular 2.8 2.8 1.8 1.8 1.8 3 3404 6 Shaft Rectangular 1.4 1.2 4.2 2.1 2 7 1 4 2993 6 Shaft Sub-rectangular 1.6 est. 1.5 Not excavated --------------------------------------- 5 2750 6 Shaft Square 1.6 1.6 4.8 4.8 1.4 2 1 3 1 11 6 Crucible 6 4161 6 Shaft Square 1.4 1.4 5.6 5.6 5 17 1 3 4 1 6 2 4 1 3 1 Human

skull 7 5089 6 Shaft Sub-rectangular 1.8 1.6 2.6+ 2.6+ Incomplete excavation-------------------------- 8 5536 8 Shaft Ovate 1.5 1 4 4 2.9 1 2 1 9 5535 8 Shaft Sub-rectangular 1.2 1 4 4 2.2 3 2 1 1

10 5534 8 Shaft Sub-rectangular 1.6 1.3 4.1 4.1 1.8 1 11 2404 7 Shaft Circular Diam 1.6 1.3+ 0.8+ Incomplete excavation----------------------------- 12 2311 6 Shaft Circular Diam 0.9 2.5 0.6 0.6 1 13 2310 7 Shaft Square 1.3 1.3 4.8 3.1 3.1 13 7 3 4 5 3 1 7 14 2289 7 Shaft Sub-square 1.4 1.4 2.7 1.7 0.9 1 15 2747 7 Pool Rectangular 4 3 0.2 0.2 0 Destruction fills-------------------------------- 16 1425 8 Shaft Rectangular 2.3 1.6 4 3.1 1.4 20 4 7 35 1 17 2164 8 Shaft Rectangular 1.7 1.1 2.7 2.7 1.3 11 2 4 2 18 4268 9 Pit Rectangular 2.2 1.6 1.7 1.7 0.8 1 19 5435 10 Shaft Square 4.5 4.5 7.5 7.5 2.4 1 12 2 Bronze

i jug




N 2459

PIT SECTIONS TRENCH C AND C F 2991

2.2

4123 10 a N- . . 4

. . .

.-- , "

." --"" ' -

"

.:'

itr

4 168 4?

?t, 14.

4 h f, o

?42h1114

p

- - I

-l~ .\ - .

p 2311

..r -'.-- 4 2

4 1~

4 4. ..

- " c

4 .

-,

/5 AIh.. -(A'

I -..

Figure 2 Greyhound Yard, Dorchester: sections through shafts 6 (4161), 13 (2310) and 5 (2750) (Woodward et al. 1993: fig. 18, by permission of Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society).

al. 1993: fig. 72). The disposition of these deposits is illustrated in Fig. 3, where the succession of dark organic deposits containing the groups of finds, interleaved with sealing layers of chalk, limestone slabs or wood, is shown for three selected shafts (6, 13 and 5).

The process of repetitive and structured deposition is exemplified in Shaft 13 (Figs 2-3 and Plates 1-2). The small quantity of primary chalk material and the cleanliness of the shaft base suggest that the shaft was kept covered after completion, perhaps was not kept empty for a long period or was cleaned and deepened on a regular basis. However, it can be considered also as intentional deposit, a 'purification', to be followed by the placing and arrangement of the first group of objects, in this case two complete pots, a puppy and

sheep joint. A further substantial pottery fragment may be a surviving portion of a whole

pot or a fragment of a particular pot selected for deposition. The presence of skeletal remains of frog (pitfall victims) may well indicate that the shaft was left open for a period,




SHAFT NUMBER 6 SHAFT NUMBER 13 SHAFT NUMBER 5

4161 Shaft cut 2310 Shaft cut 2750 Shaft cut

2114 2279 Terrace cut and

4137 Slump, void and 2282 later infill 4748 Void and 4158 later infill 2283 4749 later infill

Structured deposits Structured deposits Structured deposits Context Votives Context Votives Context Votives

4160 2290 4168 2312

4168 W A 2313 4 4167 2313

4167 ' 2313 4167 2313

4167 U 2328 4675 4389 2 3 2313 4670 4515

231.3 4671

4517 2313 * 4671 4518 V 2316 4671 4528 2316 4671 0 4528 2316 4671 4531 91A 0 2316 !4671 4532 0 2316 4974 4532

.

2316 4699 2316 4699 0

4537 2316 A * 4699 0 4537 2316 4952 4537 2321 & 4952 4537 )' 2321 4952r W 4537 2334 . 4953 4537 2334 4953 4 4537 2335 4954 4537 4 2335 9 * 4954 4571 2335 * 4955 4572 2362 4955

Key: Structured deposits Votives

sealing layer of chalk, dog frog 0 personal item sealing layer of chalk, other than in shaft 13: A puppy

,% rodent coin

2335/2334 limestone slabs 4 cat V small animal

2316 chalk/clay i sheep 9 human skull *

coarse ware, whole vessel 2313 wood-box/cover S organic. cess pig A bird I coarse ware, half vessel

samian, whole vessel

U samian, half vessel

Figure 3 Greyhound Yard, Dorchester: structured deposits in shafts 6, 13 and 5 (Henry Buglass).

before its mouth was, perhaps, covered by limestone slabs, which were a significant component of the succeeding layer, 2334. The next infill event included organic material, dog, cat and personal possessions, which were also accompanied by a pitfall victim - in this case a rodent. This episode, sealed by a 'plug' of chalk and clay, was followed by one that




Plate 1 Greyhound Yard, Dorchester: pottery vessels from shaft 6 (4161) (Francesca Radcliffe).

Plate 2 Greyhound Yard, Dorchester: pottery vessels from shaft 5 (2750) (Francesca Radcliffe).




included bird (raven and corvid in 2316) and several dogs, with two complete jars and

joints from pig and sheep. This episode was sealed by a wooden cover, or perhaps a box, 2313, accompanied by a dog, puppy and complete pot. The final deposition event, above 2328, appears to have slumped down into the shaft, as earlier or contemporary organic and loose material was reduced in volume by decomposition and pressure. This deposit with dog, joints of sheep, birds (corvid and jackdaw) and pots was covered by a layer of chalk. Sunk down into the shaft, the chalk may well have been the 'plug' or 'cap' to the shaft below a cover. The apparently intentional nature of the structured deposits in the various shafts, and the nature of the finds contained within them, strongly suggests that the deposits were votive and that the shafts fulfilled a ritual function.

Structured deposition in Iron Age and Roman Britain

The reconsideration of the shaft infills at Greyhound Yard as structured and ritual

deposits can be viewed in the light of the results of various other avenues of research, which have focused on pit and shaft deposits. Since the seminal research undertaken by Ross (1968), the identification of many shafts, pits and wells of Iron Age and Roman date in Britain as ritual features has become commonplace. Within Iron Age studies it has been further demonstrated that many of the deposits found in storage pits on occupation sites were structured in nature and resulted from ritual activities of an everyday kind (Hill 1995). More recently, it has been argued that many pit and well deposits known from Romano-British towns and military sites also reflect everyday ritual behaviour. Such arguments have been advanced in particular for the pits within the fort at Newstead (Clarke 1997, 1999) and for pits and wells in the town of Silchester (Calleva) (Fulford 2001). Fulford suggested that such deposits reflected the continuation of prehistoric traditions of such ritual and depositional behaviour into the historic Roman period. The repeated occurrence of complete vessels and animal remains (with a notable incidence of dog) in the pits and wells at Silchester can now also be seen to be a characteristic of the shafts excavated at Dorchester. However, at Dorchester there are further data to aid interpretation. First, the shafts were recorded using modern rather than antiquarian techniques, although detailed recording was restricted in scope for logistic reasons. This means that the sequence and nature of the successive deposits can be reconstructed from the archive. Second, the location of the pits can be related spatially and stratigraphically to a developing set of buildings and spaces within the insula concerned.

The role of complete or near complete Roman vessels of clay, glass or metal as votive items has recently been discussed (e.g. Fulford 2001), but the occurrence of animal and bird remains of particular species has received less detailed attention. However, recent analysis of the antiquarian records from Silchester has drawn attention to the preponder- ance of dog remains found in pits and wells within the town (ibid.: 201-5).

Dogs held a special place in the rituals and iconography of Iron Age and Roman Britain. Depictions of such creatures occur commonly, usually in the form of small figurines, and the skeletal remains of the animals themselves often were deposited in

auspicious places. Such places included temples and shrines, and also deposits located in

deep shafts or wells. Several systems of symbolic referencing seem to have been involved




(Green 1992: 198). First, dogs were traditionally associated with healing and aspects of fidelity and protection of humans - the guarding instinct. The association with health appears to have been linked to the fact that dogs could induce rapid healing by licking their own wounds, and those of humans. A somewhat contrasting group of associations included those with death and hunting, and links with chthonic themes and the underworld.

Healing cults associated with dogs are represented in Britain by the series of dog figurines found at the temple of Nodens at Lydney (Wheeler and Wheeler 1932: pls 25-6) and a further figurine from Coventina's Well on Hadrians Wall (Allason-Jones and McKay 1985: no. 38), while at Caerwent a temple contained the skull of a dog and a bronze snake, both of which were often associated with Aesculapius, the god of medicine (Green 1986: 155). The hunting aspect is best illustrated by the hounds that were the traditional associates of deities such as Diana the huntress. Chthonic overtones are illustrated by the regular occurrence of dog bones or skeletons within shafts and wells. Such deposits occurred on the sites of shrines and temples, a notable example being the numerous dog skeletons found in a 200-foot deep shaft associated with a shrine at Muntham Court, Sussex (Green 1986: 134, 155). Also of note is the deposition of the stone torso of a dog within the temple well at Pagan's Hill, Somerset (Rahtz and Watts 1989: fig. 4). The prevalence of dog skulls in such deposits may have been an oblique reference to the triple-headed dog Cerberus, guardian of the river Styx and of the entrance to the underworld. However, deposits of dog bones also occurred on other sites, apparently of a more domestic nature, such as a location at Staines where a second-century AD well contained sixteen dogs and a complete samian bowl (Green 1986: 176), a shaft found at Ewell, Surrey, in 1846, which produced complete samian and coarseware vessels along with most of the remains of a large dog, the head of which had been severed and placed next to the rest of the skeleton (Ross 1968: 264), and a well at Asthall, Oxfordshire, within which the remains of five terriers were deposited (ibid.: 259).

Within the shafts at Dorchester remains of birds were also especially common, and among these crow, raven and jackdaw were particularly represented. These birds, all black in colour, were carrion eaters, and in the Iron Age and Roman periods such species were symbolic of death, the underworld and the supernatural; ravens also were attributed oracular powers (Green 1992: 177-80). Such birds often were deposited within ritual shafts (Ross 1968) or associated with the sites of shrines and temples. A sceptre binding depicting ravens was found at the temple on Farley Heath (Green 1976: 219) and two raven skulls were found in a ritual pit at the Great Chesterford temple (ibid.: 211). Also, in France, there are two instances of Celtic deities depicted in association with both dog and raven (Green 1992: 198, 212). The most apposite parallel for the shaft deposits from Greyhound Yard may be found very close by at the Romano-Celtic temple on Jordon Hill, Weymouth. Here a shaft located in the corner of the temple building contained a series of votive deposits, which included several groups of complete pots and sixteen successive deposits of bird skeleton, each accompanied by a coin. The birds represented were buzzard, starling, crow and raven (RCHM(E) 1970: 616). The examples of such bird skeletons at Greyhound Yard provide the first clear example of such deliberate ritual deposition in Romano-British towns.




Shafts and enclosures in Romano-British towns

Within the town of Dorchester (Durnovaria) the Greyhound Yard insula lies directly to the south of the forum and to the west of the public baths (Fig. 1, inset). The roads defining the west and north of the insula run to the south and east gates of the town. These two roads can be identified as the cardo and the decumanus of the orthogonal grid. It can be

suggested that the line of these two roads could well have been determined from an

original survey undertaken on a foundation site in the Greyhound Yard insula. This may have occurred within a fenced enclosure with two aligned pits (Fig 1, enclosure A and pits 1 and 2), one of which (pit 2) became central to the second enclosure, B. We note that it has already been suggested that the development of the baths in this position may have been related to the site of a long-lived religious focus and a temple site (Woodward 1993:

361). The square form of the second fenced central enclosure, with its centrally placed pit,

invites comparison with the timber shrines of Final Pre-Roman Iron Age in Britain. However, it is approximately twice as large as that at Uley or the most substantial of the structures inside Danebury (Woodward and Leach 1993: fig. 211). The central pit can be identified as having a longer period of usage (possibly cut in Period 5, in use through 6 and 7 and then infilled in Period 8) but no significant groups of finds survived within the infill of chalk and silt deposits. The sub-rectangular structure just north of the square enclosure

(pit 1) bears a remarkable resemblance to the possible cellar shrine at Cambridge, which is described in detail below. However, pit 1 did not contain rich deposits like those recorded at Cambridge. It was in fact backfilled with chalk, possibly from neighbouring quarry pits; this suggests that this structure can be assigned to the earliest Roman period (5). The rest of the shafts were laid out around and in relation to the boundaries of the enclosures. The date of their initial construction is not known, and their phasing within the detailed structural summary provided above rests on the date of the earliest surviving deposits within them. However, if the shafts were periodically cleared out, then the original date of construction could have been contemporary with the laying out of the enclosures or soon thereafter. What seems to be represented is an array of enclosures, focal pits and peripherally placed shafts, all of which appear to have been ritual in function and situated very close to the crossing point of the main urban streets in the centre of the town. Thus all these features may have been associated with a focal point for original founding and dedication of the town, or with continuing veneration of this chosen auspicious location. Such sustained veneration may be represented in the sequence of buildings to the east of the enclosures. In the fourth century these included one room

covering a single square shaft, a small square cobbled enclosure to the south with central brazier, a courtyard with a central 'well' (or special shaft; it was unexcavated) and a verandah corridor to the north imprinted with the pair of carefully positioned foot impressions in its opus signinum floor.

Turning to a further consideration of the shaft and well fillings from Silchester (Calleva), it can be demonstrated that the detailed locations of the finds of dog remains within the town, as listed by Fulford (2001: 201-5), derive from the four insulae that adjoin the crossing of the two main urban thoroughfares, the roads that run between the various town gates (insulae I, II, IV and IX). In other words, these dog deposits lay near the centre




of the town, just like those now defined at Dorchester. Furthermore, the northern strip of insula II at Silchester, lying immediately north of the forum, contained the densest concentration of pits and wells anywhere within the town. Indeed, Fox and Hope remarked that this zone was 'simply riddled with pits' (1893: 560-1). The pits and wells in this area were found to contain thirty-nine necks of flasks or bottles, a small bronze figurine probably of Hercules, further complete pots, weights and the 'ears and eyes' portion of an antefix (Fulford 2001: 203; Fox and Hope 1893: fig. 3). Perhaps there are hints here that shafts, some of which contained dog burials and other votive deposits, were concentrated close to the centre of the town, and that these may have been involved in

dedicatory rites, as has been argued for the examples excavated at Dorchester. There are also hints that similar votive and dedicatory activities may have taken place in other Romano-British towns, and two further case studies will serve to extend the general hypothesis.

The small Roman town of Duroliponte occupied the area later known as Castle Hill in

Cambridge, overlooking a key crossing point of the River Cam. The results of an ambitious series of salvage excavations carried out in the town between 1956 and 1988 have recently been published and synthesized (Alexander and Pullinger 2000). From this fine accumulation of data it has been possible to isolate a focal area within the town which was characterized by a series of shafts and other structures and these can be compared in several ways with those encountered at Greyhound Yard, Dorchester. As at Dorchester and Silchester, the area of interest, known as Ridgeons Garden, lay roughly at the centre of the area of Roman occupation, near to the crossing of two major Roman roads. Here, in the first century AD, a rectangular enclosure, which may have been of a military nature, was constructed, followed in the second century by a complex of timber houses and a

probable shrine (ibid.: fig. 4.1). Small towns of this type seldom possessed a forum or basilica, but in the northern sector there was a stone building with a hypocaust that may have been part of a mansio or a bathhouse associated with the shrine. The shrine structure

lay immediately adjacent to Akeman Street. It was rectangular, with one apsidal end and cut 2m into the ground. The chamber had been lined with planks and was accessed by a wooden staircase (ibid.: fig. 4.14). It appears to have been the cellar for some elaborate

superstructure, which was subsequently destroyed by fire, the debris falling into the void below.

A dog skeleton and an ox skull had been deposited beneath the gravel floor of the

cellar, and above the burnt destruction debris there was an interesting series of animal burials. These comprised a horse surrounded by complete pottery vessels, a cow with a

sheep between its legs, half of a large adult dog and the remains of three smaller dogs with iron collars, laid out in a triangular arrangement with a flagon in the centre (ibid.: figs. 4.16-17). Finally, above the animal burials there was a thick deposit containing fine tablewares of both pottery and glass, coins, pins, gaming pieces, a bone flute and an intaglio of Bacchus. The shrine may have been linked to a funeral ceremony and has been

compared to the similar, but rather earlier, mortuary chamber excavated at Folly Lane, St Albans (Taylor 2000; Niblett 1999).

In the third and fourth centuries the area was levelled up and immediately west of the former shrine a series of ritual shafts were constructed, while on the other side of Akeman

Street a second possible shrine was built (Alexander and Pullinger 2000: figs 5.1, 5.7, 5.16,




53-7). The shafts were all rectangular or square in plan, and the fully excavated examples varied in depth from 1.1 to 3.5m. Of the eight shafts that were totally excavated, seven contained basal deposits of a remarkably consistent nature. These deposits involved the burial of a mature, terrier-sized dog in the south corner together with the traces of a human infant burial in a wicker basket, which had been laid on a rush mat. Some of the shafts also contained a second infant burial, deposited just above the primary deposit, and all the shafts were then filled immediately. Shaft 35 also contained a complete jug placed next to the dog burial (ibid.: fig.5.12). The eighth shaft (number 6) contained in the base the skeleton of a falcon, a horse skull, fragments of an infant burial and part of a samian vessel, while the upper fill included twenty-eight cattle skulls, other animal bones and a human jaw. The shafts and their contents were compared with the ritual shafts found at

Folly Lane (Taylor 2000: 79); they can also be considered in relation to those identified at

Greyhound Yard. Features held in common include the rectangular plan shapes of the

vertically-sided shafts, along with the occurrence of regulated and standardized deposits, dominated in both cases by the deposition of dogs and of complete table vessels. Also, both sets of shafts were located at key focal points within the geography of each town, and both lay adjacent to buildings or courtyards of probable ritual function.

One of the most meticulous excavations carried out in the centre of a Roman town was that undertaken by Frere between 1955 and 1961 at Verulamium (St Albans). The area

investigated lay directly between the forum basilica complex and the theatre and temple sites, at the very heart of the town, and adjacent to the focal crossing of the main

thoroughfare running south-west to north-east with the principal Roman road known as

Watling Street (Frere 1972: fig. 2). This area also lies in the close vicinity of the rectangular ditched enclosure lying beneath St Michael's churchyard. This dates from the final Late Iron Age period, and a contemporary pit, votive in nature, was found nearby (Bryant and Niblett 1997: 273; Haselgrove and Millett 1997: 284). The buildings excavated by Frere

comprised a row of shops or houses, first constructed in timber and later in stone, which were rebuilt and reconfigured during a period of several centuries. The area behind some of these buildings contained a small number of pits, which were dug at various times, and one of these pits is of particular interest to our argument. For here, located in the very centre of the town, but set back a little from a major road frontage, was a deep rectangular pit containing some very remarkable deposits.

Pit 7 was a rectangular shaft measuring 8 by 7 feet and 12.5 feet deep (Frere 1972: 23, fig. 8, fig. 23 section F-F'). Dating from the samian vessels found in the pit indicated that the filling had taken place between c. AD 60 and 75/80, during the excavator's Period IIA. Adjacent pits 1 and 4 were not fully excavated, but next to one of these, pit 4, in the later Period IIC (AD 130-50) a pair of unusual alcoves was built into the wall of one of the buildings (ibid.: fig. 15). These structures, which were associated with a miniature votive

pot, were interpreted as lararia or domestic shrines (ibid.: 57), and they survived in use

through the next period, IID. Following the Antonine fire, this area lay empty, and in the third and fourth centuries a new set of stone buildings was erected (ibid.: fig 25, Period

III). A further deep shaft, pit 19 (ibid.: fig. 24 section O-O'), appears to belong to Period III, located behind the stone building XIV, 6 (ibid.: fig. 25). Thus it seems that two deep shaft pits may have occupied locations in the town comparable to those described at Dorchester. The contents of pit 7 further indicate that these deposits were of a special




nature. They included a fine series of fragments, some quite substantial, from a series of decorated samian bowls (Hartley 1972: 225-31, figs 84-7). Forms 29 and 30 were particularly well represented. There were also some crucibles (Frere 1972: 23), some window glass and a stunning series of major fragments from glass vessels. These included portions from pillar-moulded bowls, a bottle, mould-blown bowls, flagons and a globular ribbed jar (Charlesworth 1972: nos 196, 198, 200, 202, 204). Altogether, these finds seem to have incorporated the remains of elaborate tablewares - the footrings of the samian bowls were worn so the vessels had definitely been used - perhaps reserved for special occasions within the calendar of communal rites, festival days or feasts of commemoration.

Conclusions

The foundation of a new Roman town was a highly significant, political and economic step in the life of a native community. It has been demonstrated by Millett that the new civitates in Britain are unlikely to have been founded or built by the army, but more likely to have been established through a willingness and desire of native 61ites to develop their power base by the adoption of a Roman style of life (Millett 1990:73). It is suggested that the semantic components of the linguistic statement that expressed foundation and citi- zenship were successfully embedded in the communities of new Roman provinces by a mutual expression of common belief that recognized the sun and its movements as an ultimate reflection of the divine. These components were translated onto the ground to create sacred spaces in the physical world.

The processes of urban foundation as recorded in the classical sources, as introduced at the start of this paper and as summarized by Creighton (2000: 210) would have involved, first, the taking of auspices, with a field of vision in the sky defined by the auger's lituus (a curved staff). The auger also fixed the axial orientation of the urban grid. These sacred actions took place within a defined area, the templum, which may have been bounded physically by a fence or ditch. An equal-armed cross placed within an enclosing line

represented the templum, the divine representation of the heavens and the cosmos, which was translated onto the ground by the auger. A reconstruction of the auger using the lituus and altar to determine the orientation of the templum on the ground from a marked shadow, to create the cardo and decumanus is shown in Figure 4, A. Finally a hole (the mundus) was dug to receive votive offerings and, following completion of the prescribed rites, the surveyors were engaged to set out the orthogonal town grid.

The foundation site may have been located at the centre of the town and became the site of a subsequent altar or shrine. At the starting point of this paper we explained the controversial nature of exact interpretations of the classical references concerned, and these controversies are also acknowledged by Creighton (ibid.). He has argued that the

imagery on Late Iron Age coins, and in particular a series of depictions of the lituus, indicates that the Roman foundation rituals were well known in Britain (ibid.: 202-4). We also suggested that a search for archaeological features in the form of ritual areas, pits of a votive nature or shrines at the very centre of Roman towns, and aligned on the

orthogonal grid, might provide some strong corroborative evidence relating to the actual enactment of dedicatory urban rites.




0-I West

SA

North

DM

B ' '..

02 N 0 W

Figure 4 A) Priests with lituus (after Rykwert 1976: 28); B) the sacred enclosures and shafts at Greyhound Yard, Dorchester (1 and 2: pits; W well; also see Fig. 1); C graffito centred on the base of BB1 platter from Greyhound Yard (Dorset County Museum Accession 1985.31.44.1133/1980, half scale, Peter Woodward; described by Tomlin 1993: 284-5). Abbreviations: S course of the sun; C cardo; D decumanus (Peter Woodward).

At Dorchester a series of empty square enclosures, associated with rows of shafts

containing repetitive deposits of a ritual nature, and later enclosed courtyards, were located at the centre of the town (Fig 4, B). We would argue that these provide strong evidence that can be related to the possible enactment of urban foundation rituals, and their continuing celebration, in the classical Roman style. The finding of two unabraded

pottery items bearing graffiti, one from shaft 19 and the other from along the eastern

boundary of enclosure B, may also be related to the cosmic symbolism involved. These secret symbols, centrally placed on the base of vessels, were initially interpreted by Tomlin as marks of personal identification (Tomlin 1993: 284). One is a simple 'X' and the other a

five-pointed star within a square (Fig 4, C). Although Tomlin dismissed the identification of the latter as a possible Chi-Rho, the depiction of an upright with pivoted cross within a

square can perhaps be seen as a representation of the surveyor's tools, groma and stella, at the centre of town or insula, or even the lituus set at the centre of the quartered templum. And the 'X graffito, at the centre of a foot-ring, can also be interpreted as a

representation of the templum concept, the quartered universe.




A set of structures and deposits similar to those identified at Dorchester found at the centre of Roman Cambridge have also been summarized, while at Verulamium the recog- nition of an early Roman shaft containing a probably votive deposit can be compared with the ritual shafts at Dorchester. Also, Creighton has suggested that the St Michael s enclosure which lies beneath the later forum at Verulamium, and which we mentioned in the previous section, occupied 'an otherwise empty Late Iron Age Verulamium' and may have been employed as a templum in a town foundation ritual (Creighton 2000: 212-13). Both at Cambridge and Dorchester it would appear that the probable foundation sites continued to be maintained and venerated into the later life of the town.

It can be concluded that the structures and deposits at Greyhound Yard can no longer be viewed in the light of the prosaic functional interpretations published in the site report (Woodward et al. 1993), but can more properly be understood within a framework of belief, symbolic language and cultural assimilation. The special assemblages within the shafts and enclosures located at the very centre of the town are here interpreted as dedicatory deposits, probably associated initially with the foundation of the town. Similar deposits have also been recognized in three other Romano-British central urban contexts. Although the results presented here are of a preliminary and speculative nature, they may provide the first steps towards a more complete understanding of the processes of urban foundation in a province at the very edge of the Roman world. Furthermore, it seems possible that aspects of the dedicatory rites represented by archaeological evidence in Britain may be reflecting the specific rituals associated with town foundation in Roman Italy, as described in the surviving classical sources.

Acknowledgements

The ideas expressed in this paper were first formulated in 2001, during research and

preparation for the new Dorchester Gallery, 4000 BC to AD 2000, which was opened on Midsummer Day 2002 at the Dorset County Museum. We acknowledge the support and encouragement provided by the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society and in particular Merry Ross and members of the Dorset County Museum Archaeological Group. We are very grateful to Francesca Radcliffe who repaired the pots from the shafts and photographed the key groups, to Millie Goswell and Maddie Down who set up the vessel groups for photography and to Roger Bell who assisted in interrogating the Grey- hound Yard excavation archive. We are also most grateful to Henry Buglass of the Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity at the University of Birmingham who prepared the final versions of Figures 1 and 3 for publication. For valuable advice concerning the evidence for urban foundation rites in both Italy and Britain we are deeply indebted to John Creighton, Robin Osborne and Richard Reece, while for assistance in finding key books we are grateful to Annette Hancocks, David Hinton, Adrian James and Stephen Woodward.

Peter J. Woodward, Dorset County Museum, Dorchester Ann B. Woodward, Institute ofArchaeology and Antiquity, University of Birmingham




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Peter Woodward trained as an architect and worked for many years as a field archaeolo-

gist in both Bedfordshire and Wessex. Now a curator at the Dorset County Museum, his main interests encompass landscape reconstruction in rural and urban environments, particularly in the prehistoric and Roman periods, and contextual archaeology.

Ann Woodward is a Research Fellow within the Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity at the University of Birmingham. She is a specialist in the analysis of British prehistoric pottery and has also published work relating to a wide range of landscape and settlement

projects. A particular interest in religious and ritual sites has led to the publication of books on Shrines and Sacrifice and British Barrows.



Documents

P and a Woodward, Urban Foundation Deposits in RB