Red River Archaeology Group & SUMO GeoSurveys
Posted on 04/02/2024 7:21:14 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Archaeologists from the Red River Archaeology Group came across the complex while working on a Barratt and David Wilson Homes housing development at Brookside Meadows in Grove near Wantage, Oxfordshire.
The site sits on a landscape inhabited since the Bronze Age which has been described as "artefact-rich".
The group's project officer said it was "an important centre of activities for a long time".
The archaeologists said the villa complex was richly decorated with painted plaster and mosaics.
Finds also include a monumental hall-like "aisled building", which is a type of structure that seems to date from the late 1st Century AD.
This building is immediately adjacent to a "winged corridor villa", a high-status domestic structure with a central range and flanking wings of rooms accessed by a central corridor.
The excavation is ongoing, but the archaeologists are almost certain the aisled building emerged later than the villa.
"The sheer size of the buildings that still survive and the richness of goods recovered suggest this was a dominant feature in the locality, if not the wider landscape," Louis Stafford, Red River Archaeology senior project manager, said...
Quantities of miniature votive axes, coins, jewellery and a complex brickwork floor have also been discovered.
They also came across hypocaust box-flue tiles from a heating system called hypocaust, which produces and circulates hot air below the floor of a room.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
Thanks for posting this story.
I was intrigued by the photo of the miniature votive ax. This is what I found:
Miniature axes such as this are not uncommon finds across the Western Roman Empire, with a handful known from London. Archaeologists normally describe them as ‘votive’, meaning that they were sacred objects, perhaps left as a ritual offering for the gods.Feb 29, 2016
My pleasure, laplata.
Miniature axes probably were used by the gnomes who were common in Europe, until they were finally stamped out by the Roman legions.
Lol
The toughest for the Romans to fight were the Leprechauns in Ireland. Their shillelaghs were brutal on Roman shins.
Did they find “Uhtred of Bebbanburg was here” carved in a lintel?
I can hear the construction manager saying, “Oh shit! Everyone is laid off for the next year.”
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