What is a Roman Villa?

February 15, 2018 Eleanor Scott

Idyllic image of Great Witcombe Roman villa (Credit: Historic England)

What was a ‘villa’ to the Roman eye and to the Roman understanding? What do modern archaeologists need to see on the ground in order to classify a site as a ‘villa’? In what ways - if at all - are they a meaningful category of evidence, and how might they give us information about the Roman economy and the colonisation of landscapes by idealised edifices? On some sites in early Roman Britain, within just a couple of decades of the occupation and in the vicinity of new Roman towns, the traditional late Iron Age settlement type of timber roundhouses were replaced by a Roman building type of rectangular houses with stone foundations and, seemingly, increased room divisions. What does this all mean - what class of habitus are we dealing with here?

Three Burials at Norton Disney - and the End of Roman Villas in Britain

January 31, 2018 Eleanor Scott

Late burial from Norton Disney Roman villa (Oswald 1937)

In the 1930s, three intriguing burials were found by Adrian Oswald and his workforce in the upper archaeological levels at Norton Disney Roman villa. Some might call these inhumations strange, lying as they did not in a burial ground but on top of or aligned with dismantled walls of once-imposing buildings from the Roman era. Why are they there? How rare are such burials? What can they tell us about life and death and the end of Roman villas in Britain - and indeed the end of Roman Britain itself?

The Intriguing Roman Villa at Norton Disney – A Conundrum under a Threat

January 20, 2018 Eleanor Scott

Norton Disney late burial - Oswald 1937 (see Refs)

I’m deliberately keeping this piece as short as possible – a lot of people involved already have too many stacks of papers on their desks and in their inboxes. This is a ‘capsule argument’ about how and why this site at Norton Disney matters, and why it deserves protection. It’s one of many villas known, but it’s one of the most intriguing. It was partly excavated a couple of years prior to World War II, so is ‘known about’; but those excavations by Adrian Oswald have themselves thrown up a whole range of puzzles. These include the archaeological narratives currently emerging of connections that stretch from prehistoric tribal Ireland through to this corner of Lincolnshire, and the story of the rise of private property and the collapse of Roman Britain - as well as suspicions of an excavator 'dining out' on fabricated stories of Saxon raiders and collisions of races and nations in the late 1930s.

Gertrude Bell's Christmas in Bethlehem, 1899

December 22, 2017 Eleanor Scott

**Bethlehem, Christmas Day 25th December 1899. 'Photographed the women in the streets'. Gertrude Bell.**

It [Bethlehem] was politics etched into the stones of a built landscape; it was 'tribal'; it was staring Bell in the face. It was a unique and special Christmas at an extraordinary time in history - and it shaped Gertrude Bell.

Gertrude Bell, Photographer - from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea

November 8, 2017 Eleanor Scott

A556. 'European woman (possibly Mrs Nina Rosen) bathing in the Dead Sea. June 1900'. Gertrude Bell Archive, Newcastle University — **A556. 'European woman (possibly Mrs Nina Rosen) bathing in the Dead Sea. June 1900'. Gertrude Bell Archive, Newcastle University**

A particular photograph in Gertrude Bell's collection, taken in her very early years as a travel photographer, has drawn me back to it many times. It's an image of a European woman bathing in the Dead Sea in Palestine - then part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire - wearing full Victorian bathing gown and looking for all the world like she's in a state of rapture rather than in a harsh and unforgiving viscous lake of salt which burns like fire in your eyes and scorches even the slightest graze. It's not a typical formal Bell view of a building or a place - it's a thoughtful, intriguing composition.

Writing Roman Britain in 1,200 Words - aka, Writing for Encyclopedias

June 18, 2017 Eleanor Scott

'How would you like to do a small job?' asked Martin Millett. 'It's paid,' he added helpfully. (Doesn't that say something about archaeology, when it's a bonus to be paid for one's labours.) I asked what it was, and he said it was a simple writing job for a new encyclopedia on British History. They wanted some stuff on Roman Britain and, if I had the time, it would be right up my street.

Oh that sounds great, I said. So Martin put me in touch with the editor, Professor John Cannon, and forward we went on our great word-restricted, tightly-written adventure. Fifty quid a thousand words and a free copy of the finished weighty tome, The Oxford Companion to British History. I was on my first maternity leave - what could possibly go wrong?

Excavation - Let's Talk about the Mental And Physical Challenges

April 28, 2017 Eleanor Scott

Shiqmim, Negev Desert 1984. I nearly died. Which was nice.

'That same night, the screaming started, as giant cockroaches flew into the communal awning and landed on people's backs and heads'

The Death Of Gertrude Bell

April 19, 2017 Eleanor Scott

**Gertrude Bell's funeral, Baghdad, 12th July 1926. Photo: Gertrude Bell Archive, Newcastle University**

How someone died is not always relevant to how they lived; but in the case of Gertrude Bell, I believe that the circumstances of her death tell us a great deal about how she felt about her own life - which in turn casts light on a whole host of historical circumstances of that era, not least the impacts of class and sex, during a time when the Middle East was being carved up and re-plated for Western consumption.

I've studied Gertrude Bell's work for over 25 years. I never felt especially attracted or connected on any personal level to the woman who manifests herself in her writings, but was always fascinated by the richness of her archaeological and photographic output and how that legacy was handled. Yet, just lately, I find myself being drawn again and again to read about the circumstances of her death. I think I know why this is, and it certainly is personal - this year I'll be the age she was when she died. And I think I've finally found the connection that was missing.

Inventing TRAC

March 28, 2017 Eleanor Scott

It's so good to see the cheerful images of the band of organisers of TRAC 2017 on social media, and the delegates gathering for the planned events and sessions in Durham and on Hadrian's Wall. I'm struck now for the first time what a comparatively solitary and nerve-wracking undertaking it was to set up and organise the original TRAC in 1991. It also still amazes me a bit just how much TRAC owes its origins to a whole load of random happenings - a set of unforeseen political circumstances in the Gulf, a chance meeting in Jerusalem, and a piss-up with Charles Daniels upon my return to Newcastle.

Experimental Archaeology - The First Iron Age Roundhouse at Castell Henllys, Wales, 1981

March 21, 2017 Eleanor Scott

Me, trowelling, looking for Iron Age postholes - Easter 1981 at Castell Henllys, Pembs

It was early 1981. I was going to be 21 in July, and was in my 3rd year of an Archaeology Degree at Newcastle University. Unexpectedly, I was hospitalised for six weeks. With the help of the hospital, and the Isle of Man Government who were funding me, and the Archaeology Department, it was agreed that I could start my final year again the following year. By March I was fine, and spoke to one of the Department's research fellows Harold Mytum about digging opportunities. He accepted me onto his small team for the first excavations at the Iron Age and Romano-British hillfort and settlement at Castell Henllys, Pembrokeshire, Wales, and I dug there over Easter, and returned there for the Summer season of digging - and for the first experimental reconstruction of an Iron Age roundhouse on this site.

Yomper

March 1, 2017 Eleanor Scott

It seems that there's little in Portsmouth - including military history that's recent enough still to be raw - that doesn't end up being political slash-and-burn. The Yomper Statue outside the Royal Marines Museum in Portsmouth, who gazes out to sea over Eastney Beach, is hot news. The Yomper memorialises the role of the marines during the Falklands Conflict in 1982 and was unveiled by Thatcher ten years later.

In their traditional campaigning style, the Portsmouth Lib Dems are trying to own it as a 'local issue', and to blame other political parties for the plan to move the iconic figure from the soon-to-close Royal Marines Museum location to the nearby Historical Dockyard where it will be a companion to the Mary Rose, Victory and Warrior - a site which draws hundreds of thousands of visitors every year.

But it is absolutely clear and obvious that this is a decision that lies with the Royal Marines Museum and the MoD - not the local Tories. The thought that the Tories would want, or enable, the removal from Eastney of the Yomper and the commemorative plaque which inscribes Thatcher's name onto the seafront turf is laughable.

In 1982 I was 22 years old and I lived in Newcastle; and I watched the news broadcast live to the nation where Brian Hanrahan said of the planes, 'I counted them all out and I counted them all back'.

Beadlam Roman Villa - Unpicking An Archaeological Site

February 24, 2017 Eleanor Scott

Beadlam Roman Villa [Plan adapted from Britannia i 1970 p.278 Fig.5]. Credit: http://roman-britain.co.uk/places/beadlam.htm — Beadlam Roman Villa [Plan adapted from Britannia i 1970 p.278 Fig.5]. Credit: http://roman-britain.co.uk/places/beadlam.htm

Back in the 1990s the then Inspector of Ancient Monuments David Sherlock decided to take me to visit the site of Beadlam Roman Villa in North Yorkshire, and asked me to write about it. I'd published a couple of bits of my PhD thesis on RB villas, and English Heritage had an interest in David Neal's write-up of the 1966-1978 Beadlam excavations. David Sherlock thought I might have some 'new light' to cast on these old stones.

Standing there in the field on that grey day, staring at lines of consolidated wall footings poking through grass, I wasn't really feeling it. But back in the Department Library in Newcastle, as I studied once again the plans and the information available, a lot of ideas did come quickly, and the inspiration was a blocked doorway. That changed everything. I've always been fascinated by Roman villas, what they were, what they meant, and how British people lived in them.

Greenham Common Peace Camp - Women's History and Competing Masculinities

January 7, 2017 Eleanor Scott

I look at my photographs of Greenham Common from the early 1980s and I see more now than I saw then. I see the women again, certainly: defiant, rainbow-colourful and vibrant; and I see the sharp razor wire perimeter and the police presence; but I also see competing masculinities that I hadn't thought about before.

Masada, A Bedouin, A Landscape

December 16, 2016 Eleanor Scott

**In 1949, Masada became an Israeli national symbol of Jewish resistance in the face of oppression.**

I first visited Masada in 1984, arriving as most visitors did by the modern Israeli-built road on its eastern side which follows the edge of the Dead Sea. Access to the top of the Masada stronghold was only via either the cable car up from the eastern side or the steep footpath. The Roman army who under General Silva vanquished the Jewish zealots at Masada came in from the western side and built their famous ramp and mounted their final assault over this western edge.

By 1990, when this photograph was taken, it was extremely unusual for travelers to be in a position to see and photograph Masada's western side from the Judaean Desert. It's an inhospitable landscape, and close to the border with what was then called the Occupied West Bank (now Palestinian Territories). It's a national park and for obvious reasons protected - which means casual visitors and tourists are discouraged from anything other than organised tours along main routes - which even today takes them inevitably along the main road along the Dead Sea and to the eastern side of Masada and the convenience of a cable car ride.

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