Worsley Man Anniversary

Talking to staff about Worsley Man at Manchester Museum

It was my turn to lead this morning’s gallery tour and by a particular piece of serendipity it turned out that the anniversary of the subject I selected last year actually falls today. The head of  Worsley Man was found  on 18th August 1958.  The remains were found by John Connelly as he was walling peat blocks in an isolated spot just inside the Worsley boundary, about two miles from Astley Green village. Worsley Moss is part of the Chat Moss pet bog complex in Salford.

As with the better preserved body of Lindow Man (also discovered in the month of August  – the 30th anniversary of the discovery has just passed), the head was thought to be that of a relatively recent murder victim and police spent five days searching the surrounding 252 acres (100 ha) of the moss but without finding any further remains. Incidentally we’d be very interested to talk to any retired police officers who took part in the search of Worsley Moss. There was a Coroner’s Inquest but when tests revealed that the head was not recent the rather grisly discovery was transferred to the University of Manchester. The remains were displayed in a perspex box at the Museum of the Pathology Department at the Manchester Medical School.

It was only after the discovery of Lindow Man in August 1984, that the head of Worsley Man attracted archaeological interest. Worsley Man was 20-30 years old and showed signs of having died violently: there was a wound behind the right ear, a fracture on top of the skull, a garotte around his neck and one of the vertebrae had been sliced when he was decapitated. Radiocarbon-dating placed Worsley Man around 100-200 AD.

CT scan of Worsley Man (courtesy of Manchester Hospitals Judith Adams)

A couple years ago a group of researchers from Universities of Manchester and Leicester began looking at Worsley Man again, and with the help of Prof Judith Adams of Manchester Hospitals were able to carry out a CT scan of the head. This showed that  there was a previously unknown third vertebra in the flesh underneath the skull.

Last autumn Worsley Man was scanned again at the Materials Science Department to investigate the injuries in more detail. This work was the subject of a documentary that was broadcast earlier in the year.  The members of the Worsley Man team who took part had to sign a non-disclosure agreement until the programme had been shown on TV. It is unfortunate that we were unable to study the scans and consult other members of the team before having to make a comment on camera about the scans.

Scan showing the three remaining vertebrae of Worsley Man

Worsley Man: vertebrae and styloid process (in light blue on right hand side of scan)

A piece of bone deep in the flesh of Worsley Man looked like the point of a bone tipped spear, similar to examples found in Iron Age cemeteries in East Yorkshire but in retrospect this is much more likely to be the styloid process of the skull. However, it was till worthwhile doing the scans because they revealed details such as there are two planes where the third vertebra had been chopped. These and a previously unseen nick on the mandible and the fractures on top of the skull show that Worsley Man died violently.

If the rest of the body had been found, there might be further evidence of  injuries. Although the police searched Worsley moss for five days in 1958 they didn’t find any more remains. However, this does not mean that there were no remains to be found. It was an extensive search area, the people involved weren’t archaeologists, and seeing remains in these circumstances is by no means an easy task, as the account of the finding of Lindow Man’s remains by Rick Turner in 1984 shows.

Scan of skull showing tooth and staples from 1950s autopsy

No further detail of the ligature was seen on the scans because the material out of which the ligature was made and the tissue of the neck are so similar  that we cannot differentiate between them. In fact it may possibly be the case that the ligature is part of the neck tissue.

One further piece of work to be done is isotopic analysis of tooth enamel to determine if possible where Worsley man came from. This might tell us whether Worsley Man was a local or an in-comer. If the radiocarbon date is correct in placing Worsley man in the 2nd century AD, he can hardly be a prisoner-of-war unless this happened during one of the periodic rebellions against Roman rule that took place in northern Britain. However, if (and it is a big if) we follow Rene Girard’s sacrificial theory, the scapegoating of victims during a time of crisis only ‘works’ if the victim is a member of the community caught up in the ‘sacrificial crisis’, so we ought to expect isotopic analysis to show he was a local not an outsider.

It seems that each new analysis raises further questions. Oh well, see you in the gallery same time next year!

Sam and Tristan looking at the results

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Roman Mice at Manchester Museum

Visitor Assistants inspecting mouse bones from Roman Manchester

The gallery talk for Manchester Museum Visitor Services Assistants earlier today seems to have passed off successfully. It is hard not to register an impact  when your talking point is second only to panda cubs in the cuteness stakes. This being an archaeology gallery tour I hasten to say that we weren’t looking at any live animals only their archaeological remains. They came from a particular context from excavations on a Roman site in the centre of Manchester.

Examining the mouse bones

The mouse bones are incredibly small but the late Derek Yaldon identified them as those of the Yellow-necked mouse (Apodemus flavicollis). It transpires that this mouse has an unusual distribution in south-east England and in the Severn valley northwards into Shropshire. Zoologists have argued that this distribution relates to the presence of deciduous woodland. The Yellow-necked mouse is associated with this environment even more than the Wood mouse (Apodemus sylvaticus). So we appear to have a good indication from these tiny bones that lots of trees were growing in and around Manchester during Roman times.  There is a record for Salford Hundred (which included Manchester)  in the Domesday Survey of 1086 to say that woodland extended  9.5 leagues by 5 leagues (about 23 km x 12 km) so there was a good habitat for the Yellow-necked mouse into the Middle Ages in Manchester.

Close up of mouse bones (scale in millimetres)

The reason why Manchester Museum has these bones is somewhat upsetting and any small children or those of a sensitive nature should look away now. The mouse bones came from the sediment in the bottom of a Roman amphora that was found during Prof. Barri Jones’ excavations in Manchester. The neck and handles of the amphora or storage vessel had been broken off and it’s been suggested that this was done deliberately to make it easier to bury the amphora in the ground, where it served as a horribly effective mouse trap. Once the poor mice fell in they couldn’t climb back out because the sides of the vessel curved inwards at the top. The mice drowned in water that collected in the bottom of the amphora and their bones were in the silt when the archaeologists excavated some 2000 years later.

The Roman army must have had a lot of experience of dealing with pests of various kinds because the food stuffs needed to feed the soldiers was stored in the capacious granaries that are a feature of Roman fort sites. In my VSA presentation we discussed the provision of cat flaps and even owl chutes to enable predators to enter granaries and keep down the mouse population. Babak asked if poisoned bait was used and referred to Chaldean rodent control measures. I’m not aware that the Romans used poisons but perhaps someone out there can enlighten us.

Roman mosaic with trompe l’oeil effect food debris and mouse

Despite their ruthlessness in this regard the Romans seem to have liked mice. There is a famous line in Plautus: ‘A mouse never entrusts its life to only one hole’ – for which quotation I am endebted to an article in The Telegraph by Victoria Lambert about celebrity pieds-a-terre, featuring a photo of actress Stephanie Beecham. If the Romans didn’t like the creatures, why have bronze figurines of mice nibbling food in a rather endearing way, or show them on those wonderful Roman mosaics depicting waste food on the floor? Sadly we don’t have a bronze mouse in Manchester Museum’s collection but I saw a fine example in a private metal-detected collection years ago in East Yorkshire.

Roman bronze mouse from East Yorkshire

We do however, have a lamp with an image of a mouse as decoration (below). It is a charming representation of a mouse sipping olive oil from the hole in the top of a lamp. Unfortunately it’s slightly damaged but the curl on the left on the photo below is the handle of the lamp, on which the mouse is sitting to get at the olive oil.

Roman mouse lamp at Manchester Museum (accession number 40647).

In an email one of our Visitor Services Assistants, Olga, had said she was really looking forward to this morning’s talk because she keeps Degu, small furry rodents from Chile, as pets. I somehow think it was perhaps just as well she didn’t come because she might have found it upsetting. By the time I’d finished speaking there were tears in the eyes of more than a few people in the group. If I give this talk in future I must remember to take along a box of tissues…

If you are of a sensitive disposition and can’t bear to attend the talk about mice in Roman Manchester you can find out more by reading:-

D.W.Yalden (1984?) ‘The Yellow-necked mouse, Apodemus flavicollis, in Roman Manchester’, Notes from the Mammal Society – No.48, pp.285-8.

This is a copy of the writer’s section which was published in S.Bryant, M. Morris & J.S.F.Walker (1986) Roman Manchester A Frontier Settlement The Archaeology of Greater Manchester, pp.81-2.

Readers may care to know that the same writer published a note on ‘Yellow-necked mice in archaeological contexts’ in Bulletin of the Peakland Archaeological Society (vol.33 for 1983, pp.24-9).

And see Greg Morton’s guest blog about Roman mice 

 

 

 

 

Turned Out Nice Again: The Young Archaeologists Club Outing to Formby (17th May 2014)

 

Young Archaeologists at Formby in June

It seems like a long time ago now but it is only a matter of a couple of weeks since I accompanied the Manchester Museum Young Archaeologists to Formby in Lancashire. We try to take the children out on a trip once a year and Formby was great because it wasn’t too far from Manchester, there was some fascinating archaeology to see and there was plenty of space for the children to run around. It was the first time I’d been to Formby but it is hard not to fall in love with the place. From the moment you draw up at the National Trust car park where you can see red squirrels running around the pine trees to the moment when you crest the rise of the sand dunes and you see the foreshore for the first time before you it’s a delight.

Dune crossing at Formby

We went to Formby to see the famous footprints in the ancient land surface preserved underneath the sand. They are only revealed at low tide so obviously we had to time our visit very carefully. Fortunately time and tide on this occasion were very favourable to us and we enjoyed several very agreeable hours on the foreshore looking for footprints. Nor did  our efforts go unrewarded because we found a track of foot shape impressions in the ancient land surface that could not possibly have been recent.

Human footprints track at Formby

 

Foot shaped depression in the ancient land surface at Formby

Many similar tracks have been recorded over the years and there is a dedicated website where you can see them. They  date from the prehistoric period and some of them may go back to the Mesolithic period about 8000 years ago. A range of different animals have been identified, not to mention the footprints of men, women and children who went out on the foreshore to hunt wildfowl and to gather crustacea and other sea foods.

Wolf print

On this occasion the Young Archaeologists discovered what we think was the imprint of a deer and what looked like a wolf’s pawprint. Afterwards we had a picnic in the pine forest and then called at Liverpool Museum to see the story of Liverpool displays which feature material from Formby.

Impression of human footprint from Formby in Liverpool Museum

This was an excellent day out and all thanks to Clare Pye for organising all aspects of the day including the warm sunny weather.

 

Enamelled Roman Jewellery II

Enamelled Roman brooches in St Mary’s Museum, Isles of Scilly

The magical name of Nornour came up in discussion at the recent workshop about enamelled Roman objects over at Malton in North Yorkshire. It reminded me that Dan, one of Manchester Museum’s dedicated Visitor Services Assistants, had given me copies of photographs he’d taken on a holiday visit to the Isles of Scilly Museum. By his kind permission I can share photos of the beautiful objects on the Ancient Worlds Blog.

Wheel brooch courtesy of Justine Bayley

The photo below shows the scale of the discoveries of brooches and other objects found on the remote island of Nornour in the Isles of Scilly. They were first revealed after gales exposed stonework and artefacts were revealed. Excavations were held on Nornour between 1962 and 1966 (see Archaeological Journal vol.124). The archaeological work showed a long period of prehistoric occupation but it was the bronze artefacts of Roman date that put Nornour on the map.

Displsy of objects from the site of Nornour, Isles of Scilly Museum

There were a lot of them as you can see from Dan’s amazing photo. They date from the later 1st to the early 3rd century AD. The sheer quantity suggests that this was the site of a shrine where objects were deposited as votive offerings. Another object, a pipe-clay depiction of Venus (below) is very interesting in this respect because, as Sarnia Butcher’s little book on Nornour (Isles of Scilly Museum Publication no.7) says, objects like this were often given as offerings at temples and shrines or placed with burials.

Venus figurine

The nature of the objects seems to point towards some sort of special circumstances in which all the objects were left on Nornour. As the booklet suggests ‘the assemblage is best interpreted as offerings at a shrine from mariners plying between the continental ports and the Bristol Channel’.

Coins, comb fragment and potsherds

My thanks to Dan for sharing his holiday snaps with us.

The forgotten 1066 battlefield of Fulford

Battlefield casualties (from Chas Jones The Forgotten Battle of 1066 Fulford)

Fulford is arguably the battle that made the Norman Conquest possible, although it has largely been overshadowed by the battles of Stamford Bridge and Hastings. Over the last years a considerable amount of work has been done to try and identify the site of the battle. On Saturday I went out to Fulford with members of the Medieval Section of the Yorkshire Archaeological Society for a tour of what our guide, Chas Jones, believes to be the site of the battle of Fulford.

Fleet (from Chas Jones The Forgotten Battle of 1066 Fulford)

In the summer of 1065 the Northumbrians rebelled against the unpopular rule of Tostig. Having lost control of northern England Tostig appealed to his brother Harold I of England to reinstate him after he became king but when Harold refused, Tostig sought help from abroad. In September 1066 whilst Harold was expecting the Normans to land on the south coast, Tostig and Harold Hadrada of Norway landed in East Yorkshire and sacked Scarborough. They sailed up the Humber with a fleet of an estimated 400 vessels, exploiting high tides to land at Riccall about 3.5 miles from Fulford. Tidal rises of between 7 and 11 m have been recorded which would have helped the Scandinavians.  In the Domesday Survey Tostig owned land at Riccall and so he must have been familiar with the phenomenon of high tides at this time of year. Earls Morcar and Edwin moved their forces to cover the likely invasion routes on the rivers Wharfe and Ouse. The Northumbrian army  marched out from York to meet the invaders. Unfortunately it is not known precisely where the battle took place but Chas Jones made a plausible case for the battlefield being located along the banks of the Germany Beck close to the present village cemetery. A plaque in the playing field commemorates what an earlier generation of researchers thought to be the site, very close to where Chas believes the battle took place.

Commemorative plaque for the battle of Fulford

Sources for the battle are sketchy at best but Chas has drawn on material from Scandinavian sagas. Though written down in the 13^th century there are grounds to suppose that the composer was concerned to record historical information accurately.

Chas Jones

Chas set the historical context for the battle and explained the topography of what he believes to be the battlefield of Fulford. The glacial moraine on which the village stands is crucial because it overlooks low-lying swampy ground and there are steep slopes on either side to defend the flanks.  In front of the position Germany Beck served as a moat, protecting the approach to York from the south along the moraine.

the slope down to the Germany Beck

Chas drew on the Orkney Sagas to piece together an account of the battle. Tostig’s forces tried to cross the Germany Beck but were thrown back by Morcar and the Northumbrians. However the Northumbrians were then taken in flank by Hadrada’s Scandinavians who were waiting their moment in low-lying ‘dead’ ground close to the River Ouse. The Northumbrians fled along the Germany Beck and Chas told us about archaeological work in the area immediately north of the posited battlefield which has revealed hearths and furnace bottoms where broken arms and armour were recycled. Chas showed us the centre of the battlefield on the moraine, the Germany Beck and the dead ground near the river where the Scandinavians waited.  Walking back to the village it was striking just how steep the edge of the moraine is.

edge of moraine

Over a number of years Chas has sampled various areas of the battlefield looking for evidence. He thinks he may well have this but unfortunately he couldn’t show us any military finds because the objects are in the York conservation lab. However, he did say that iron nails and furnace bottoms found along the line of the Northumbrian retreat have excited considerable interest amongst Scandinavian archaeologists.

A short time after the battle Harold arrived, having marched the length of England at great speed. He caught Hadrada, Tostig and their army by surprise at Stamford Bridge. The Scandinavians suffered heavy casualties and it was said that only a small fraction of the original invasion fleet returned to Norway. Having learnt that William of Normandy had landed, Harold  returned south. His men were tired after their epic march and not all of the reinforcements had arrived. At Hastings Harold was killed with many of his closest supporters and England was ruled by William I.

Sadly the battlefield is threatened by development – a housing estate and a road – surprisingly located on low-lying ground liable to flooding. Chas has challenged the development in the courts but the battlefield is still under threat.

More on late Glacial hunter gatherers

Poulton le Fylde elk and barbed point

Recently I wrote about a controversy  over some barbed bone points or harpoons from Holderness in East Yorkshire that took place during the 1920s. Another discovery that sheds some light by association on the Holderness points is that of Poulton-le-Fylde. During the construction of a bungelow animal bones were discovered together with a couple of bone points. The animal had suffered a number of wounds at the hands of prehistoric hunter gatherers. One of the points had even pierced its hoof. Presumably the animal tried to escape the hunters by swimming but, weakened by its wounds, it drowned and the carcass was never recovered. Thousands of years later the animal’s skeleton was discovered during building work. The Poulton-le-Fylde elk can be seen in the Harris Museum in Preston and a truly magnificent exhibit it is too!

The results from the radiocarbon-dating showed the elk died some 13,500 years earlier. This would put it in the late Glacial. Between about 23,000 and 19,000 years ago a large ice sheet covered much of northern Britain. As Ice Age drew to a close the climate got warmer and the ice sheets retreated but this improvement was not sustained and there was a sharp cold ‘snap’ about 13,000 years ago that lasted about 500 years before the climate improved again and warm conditions prevailed similar to those we enjoy today. The elk in the UK dispappeared  because of pressure of hunting, or climate change or a combination of both factors.

The Poulton-le-Fylde elk provides an example of an animal hunted using very similar bone points to those found by the Morfitt family. The association of points with a large mammal skeleton can be compared with the point from Skipsea Withow. The date at which this happened is also of interest. The contested Holderness harpoons have never been dated. Having been boiled in glue by the early 20th century antiquaries in order to conserve them means they cannot now be accurately dated. However, a barbed point discovered in a quarry at Gransmoor in Holderness during the 1990s was dated to about 13000 BP, again comparable to the Poulton-le-Fylde example.

What we seem to have is evidence across northern Britain of hunting at an early date, after the melting of the ice sheets. Waterlogged landscapes like Holderness and the Fylde  enabled the survival of large mammal skeletons intact and the barbed points of spears associated with them. the Morfitts’ points may be even older than they were said to be during the 1920s.

Castleshaw Roman Forts Again

Castleshaw Roman fort, standing in the join between two of the earthern ramparts (centre foreground)

A few weeks ago I posted a blog about a visit Christine and I made to Castleshaw Roman forts in the Pennines near Oldham. This followed the visit by the Friends of Castleshaw Roman forts to Manchester Museum see finds from the excavations that took place there during the early 1900s. I see that the blog has mysteriouisly disappeared so I thought I’d redraft it, taking advantage of the fact that since I first wrote it, the Son of Mars exhibiton has opened at the Museum of Lancashire in Preston. This exhibiton celebrates the work of archaeological illustrator, Graham Sumner, and includes a number of his wonderful paintings of Roman soldiers and Castleshaw Roman fort. 

Landscape at Castleshaw

The fort site is at the top of a valley overlooking a couple of reservoirs. The best way to get to the site is along the A62 and follow signs to Castleshaw Centre (on Waterworks Road). There is a small car park and the fort is on a hill on the other side of the road. You approach the fort across a fairly steep field. The fortlet can be seen very clearly on the AA route planner website if you go onto satellite. The photo above is looking back down the slope through the corner of the fortlet. There was a fort for an auxiliary unit or regiment of about 500 men covering 2.5 acres here from the 70s AD. It was abandoned for a time after AD 85 and early in the 2nd century it was re-occupied by a smaller contingent of about 80 men. A fortlet was built within the original footprint of the fort. It went out of use about 120 AD.

Graham Sumner’s reconstruction of Castleshaw Roman fort on the information panel at the site

All this is explained in the information panel on site, which features authoritative reconstruction illustratrations by Graham Sumner.

Interpretation panel at Castleshaw

There is  a long history of antiquarian interest in the site and a number of excavations were carried out during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. People’s poet, Ammon  Wrigley, leased the field containing the fort and dug a number of trenches in 1898. There is a photograph of this work in Sam Seville’s With Ammon Wrigley in Saddleworth (1984). A few years ago I came across a piece of Roman tile from Castleshaw with Ammon Wrigley’s name written on it that probably comes from this work.  Wrigley is better known as a poet, however, and his lengthy poem Castleshaw  was inspired by the Roman explorations. This is one of the verses:-

Now we see a phantom people
Meet them on the paved way,
Watch them at thier daily labours,
Here within their walls of clay;
But the scenes of pomp and warfare
Who can picture, who can tell
What the tide of Roman conquest
Washed upon this moorland fell?

The first serious work was done by Bruton Andrew and Lees in 1907-8. This is the material in the Manchester Museum archaeology collection. There are sherds of Roman pottery including samian ware, mortaria or grinding or mixing bowls and coarse wares; melon beads; glass fragments including part of a ribbed bowl, and a number of pieces of wood, possibly to be identified as the pilum muralis, the stake used to defend a rampart.

Friends of Castleshaw Roman forts visit to see material from the 1907-8 excavations at Manchester Museum

Sadly some rather spectacular pieces of leather that had been preserved very well in the acidic moorland environment  cannot be located. The photograph shows the uppers of Roman sandals or boots comparable to what has been found at Vindolanda.  They have been missing since at least the 1970s. It woud be brilliant if we could find out what happened to them.

Uppers of Roman shoes from the Pit at Castleshaw – what happened to them?

if you want to find out more about the forts and the potential for further archaeological work, Norman Redhead has written an article in the Saddleworth Historical Society Bulletin (vol.42, no.3, autumn 2012, pp.65-75). Ken Booth’s Roman Saddleworth, the History, Archaeology and Visible Remains of the Roman Occupation of an area in the Pennines  (Saddleworth Archaeological Trust, 2001) is available from the Saddleworth Museum in Uppermill.  There is a small display about Castleshaw in the museum. A visit to the site and the museum in Uppermill is warmly recommended. On a fine day with a picnic, it’s a treat.

Saddlworth Museum display of Castleshaw finds

Incidentally I’d like to thank the anonymous elderly couple who kindly guided me the last part of the way to the car park after I’d taken a wrong turn at the reservoir on Sat.20th July.  I think I mentioned where I worked and why I was trying to find the fort but I didn’t catch their name.

Visit to Hadrian’s Wall with the Friends of Castleshaw Roman Forts

Further to the recent visit by the Friends of Castleshaw Roman Forts to the Manchester Museum to see the finds from the 1907-1908 excavations at Castleshaw, near Manchester, I went on the excursion to Vindolanda Roman fort yesterday organised by the Friends.  

Roman milecastle at Cawfields on Hadrian’s Wall

When we arrived at Vindolanda it was pouring with rain and rivulets were streaming down the coach windows. We made a beeline for the newly refurbished museum and saw the new displays, featuring some of the writing tablets for which the site is famous. Afterwards the weather had settled down and  we stopped off at Cawfields milecastle on Hadrian’s Wall to stretech our legs before the long journey back to Uppermill. The vallum, the earthwork that protected the wall from the south, stood out very clearly as this photo shows.  

The vallum at Cawfields

The new displays at the Vindolanda Museum are well-designed. One of the first cases you see is a particularly handsome case of Roman samian ware pottery. Though visually striking, the new displays seem not to offer the level of detailed information visitors used to enjoy in the old displays. The displays of Roman pottery are more generic and do not give the dates when the various wares were used on the site.

Roman samian pottery on display at Vindolanda

I particulary liked the mass of Roman leather sandals. Objects made of organic materials survives remarkably well in the anaerobic conditions on this site.

Leather sandals on display at Vindolanda Roman fort

 It made me think of the missing leather objects from Castleshaw Roman fort excavated in the early 20th century. They were last seen before the 1970s. Perhaps they will turn up like the neolithic stone axehead found in the Botany department of the Museum last week… If anyone out there has seen them or knows what hapened to them do please let Manchester Museum know.

Uppers of Roman shoes from the Pit at Castleshaw – what happened to them?

Friends of Castleshaw Roman Forts Visit the Museum

Friends of Castleshaw Roman forts at the Manchester Museum

On Friday 12th July members of the Friends of Castleshaw Roman forts came to the Manchester Museum to see finds from the excavations that took place in 1907. I got out a lot of the finds from the store and took them up to the seminar room in the Collection Study Centre. The session was organised by Norman Redhead Heritage Management Director (Archaeology) at the Greater Manchester Archaeological Advisory Service, University of Salford. Norman is in the early stages of a community project to promote interest in what must be one of the most spectacular locations for a Roman fort in Britain. It is on a spur leading off the Standedge, the most important crossing point of the Pennine moors, between Marsden in West Yorkshire and Diggle in Greater Manchester.

Aerial photo of Castleshaw Roman fort and fortlet (courtesy of GMAAS)

It was here that the Romans ceated a fort to control movement across the Pennines during the governorship of Julius Agricola in the late 70s AD. The fort was garrisoned by an auxiliary regiment of the Roman army until about AD 90 and replaced about AD 105 by a smaller fortlet, which sits inside the larger auxiliary fort. At this time the garrison was only about 100 men.  Some time in the 120s the fortlet too was abandoned. The site was excavated in 1907 by Francis Bruton and during the late 1950s and 1960s by Rosser and Thompson.

All the material ought to date, therefore, from the 70s to the 120s AD. This seems to be the case with the glass and the pottery. Pieces of rusticated ware have been found. There are pieces of samian ware although the surface has not survived very well. A piece with gladiators was featured in the 1911 report. Pieces of amphora used to transport wine, olive oil and fish sauce or garum were found though curiously there are relatively few body sherds. Were they weeded out by the Edwardian excavators? There are quite a lot of mortaria, some with stamps.

Mortarium stamp from Castleshaw

I speculated that they may have been making special mashes to feed to the horses that pulled wagons crossing the pass. There are also pieces of Black Burnished ware which was coming into northern Britain from the 120s with the building of Hadrian’s’ Wall. My favourite piece is a piece of tile with a stamp which reads COHIIIIBR(E?) – the fourth cohort of Breuci (?). These were men originally recruited in the Balkans.

Tile stamp from Castleshaw

Finds from the 1907 excavations at Castleshaw

Further work was done by Rosser although the finds from that dig have vanished mysteriously. Sadly the excavator killed himself. Francis Thompson continued the work. One of the discoveries was a pit with broken pieces of beaker pottery, which we have in the Museum. I got out the most complete beaker – which also happens to be the most complete prehistoric pot in the Manchester Museum archaeology collection. Perhaps people in prehistoric times, 4000 years ago, were attracted by the view.

This was probably the first time in many years that the material has been out on a table for people to see. It was great to see a selection of the finds. Although metalwork had not survived particularly well and even the samain pottery looked as though the surface had deteriorated badly in the acidic conditions, some things had survived in very good condition. The glass for instance: there are broken pieces of a beautiful pillar-moulded bowl and several shards from a square vessel with raised circles on the base. There were also three glass gaming counters and a fragment of a glass bangle or bracelet and a number of melon beads. It is not clear whether some of these could have belonged to women or whether men were using them. All of these can be found amongst the Roman finds from  Manchester.

There is great potential to look at the 1907 finds again with the benefit of all the research that has been done since then. Let’s hope Norman’s proposed project with the Friends of Castleshaw Roman forts is successful! You can find out more by reading Norman’s article ‘Renewed interest in the Castleshaw Roman Forts’ in Bulletin of the Saddleworth Historical Society Vol.42, no.3 (autumn 2012), pp.65-74.

Whitworth Park Dig

Lead soldier from Whitworth Park

Over the last week I’ve been trotting down Oxford road to see the latest finds from the Whitworth Park dig and to record interviews and take photographs for the Whitworth Park exhibition at the Manchester Museum in May to October 2014. This is a community archaeology project designed to explore the history of the park and to complement the Whitworth Art Gallery development project. Some work was done two years ago to find features like the filled-in boating lake and the bandstand.

Boating Lake trench, Whitworth Park 10th July 2013

It got really exciting when the team  put in a trench across the edge of the boating lake and found a well-stratified layers and surafces that marked the late Victorian transition from boating lake to paddling pool. Having been covered with a layer of concrete the archaeology has survived brilliantly and yesterday the team was pulling out bottles, children’s toys, pieces of leather shoe and bits of clothing. Even though the archaeology is relatively recent it is a fascinating project which opens up the park of a hundred years ago with all its civic amenities. We can touch the objects that visitors lost or threw in the lake that somehow makes it seem more real than if we simply look at postcards of the park. 

Clay pipe bowl from the boating lake trench

It’s also been brilliant seeing just how wide a range of people have been involved, including children from local schools, archaeology students from the university, members of the Young Archaeologists Club,  the Friends of Whitworth Park and volunteers who kindly give up their time to help on the project. There’s even an artist/illustator who, as they say, has been ’embedded’ with the excavation team to capture views of the dig. His work somehow has a Victorian or Edwardian feel.

a view of the dig

You can go and see what’s going on for free and it’s on until the end of the week.

This project is a collaboration between the University of Manchester Department of Archaeology, The Manchester Museum, the Whitworth Art Gallery, Friends of Whitworth Park and the Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relation Resource Centre, supported by a generous grant of £39,700 by the Heritage Lottery Fund.