"British Archaeology" review of Robin's new book

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"British Archaeology" review of Robin's new book
Topic Started: Oct 20 2009, 01:55 PM (104 Views)
SacoHarry	Oct 20 2009, 01:55 PM Post #1
Administrator Posts: 368 Group: Admin Member #1 Joined: August 22, 2006	In the September/October 2009 edition of "British Archaeology" magazine, Dr. Paul Bidwell published a great review of Robin's recent Vindolanda book. (Dr. Bidwell led excavations in the northeast corner of Vindolanda's Stone Fort II in the early 1980s.) The review has been posted to CBA's own page. For convenience, the text is presented below as well: Vindolanda: A Roman Frontier Fort on Hadrian’s Wall Reviewed by Paul Bidwell by Robin Birley \| Amberley Mar 2 2009 \| Ł16.99 \| pp192 \| ISBN 978-1848682108 PB Vindolanda is one of the most famous archaeological sites in Britain. Coincidences in its siting and how its deposits accumulated have resulted in exceptionally good preservation of organic materials. Amongst the plant remains, textiles, leather and wooden objects, were hundreds of writing tablets which, as Birley states in this book, provide “brilliant glimpses” of everyday life in the late first and early second centuries AD. Others have pitched it much higher, describing the Vindolanda tablets as an outstanding addition to the corpus of written Latin and as providing a new perspective on the Roman army in the western part of the empire. Birley can be forgiven his modesty in understating the importance of Vindolanda. It has always been part of his life. His father acquired the small estate which included the fort site and Chesterholm, now the Vindolanda Museum, in 1929. Eight Birleys, by birth or marriage, appear in this book, although since 1970 the site and its collections have been owned by a trust which includes several distinguished Romanists. This is the fullest account yet to appear of the struggles to set up the project and keep it going through disasters such as the foot-and-mouth epidemic of 2001. The successive state heritage agencies emerge as the greatest obstacles to progress. Birley reports a much-improved relationship, perhaps the result of an irresistible force meeting a far from immoveable object. Setting aside the politics, and even bearing in mind the support of national politicians and prominent academics, the achievements of the Birleys and the Vindolanda Trust are remarkable. The account of a major research project and museum funded by income from visitors and donations should be read by everyone concerned with the management of an archaeological site. Most of the book, however, is about the excavations. Vindolanda was an ordinary fort which has produced extraordinary finds. For most of the Roman period it was held by the commonest types of Roman military units in Britain, which combined footsoldiers and cavalry. Most of the writing tablets come from the early timber fort, occupied and rebuilt three times between about AD86 and 120. Thereafter the chronology becomes shaky until the early third century when the first stone fort was rebuilt following the arrival of the Fourth Cohort of Gauls, which was at Vindolanda until the end of the Roman period. In common with other forts in the Hadrian’s Wall zone, recent work has produced a new picture of the late Roman and early post-Roman period which at Vindolanda includes a church built on the site of the commanding officer’s house. Birley’s account is based on a large series of reports and studies which occupy 40cm of the reviewer’s book shelves. None – with the exception of my own publication in 1985 – is a conventional archaeological report with all the finds published and related to a detailed stratigraphical description. This is no criticism of an alternative approach, widely adopted, which in effect publishes the excavation results as a series of fascicules. Unfortunately, the publication of the objects has run far ahead of the full descriptions of the buildings, about which the reader will often want to know much more. Many books could and will be written about Vindolanda. A priority must be one on its structural archaeology. Paul Bidwell is Head of Archaeology for Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums.



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