British Archaeology, no 24, May 1997: Reviews

CELTIC COINAGE IN BRITAIN
Philip de Jersey
Shire, £4.99
ISBN 0-7478-0325-0 pb

If you can't tell your Vep Corfs from your Vericas, and you're bewildered by the range and apparent obscurity of many British Iron Age (Celtic) coins, then you could do a lot worse than read this excellent introduction to the subject by Philip de Jersey.

The book starts with the two most vexed questions in Iron Age coin studies. Why were they introduced, and what were they used for? De Jersey, who maintains the Celtic Coin Index at Oxford University, concludes that coins were introduced to European Celtic societies by Celtic mercenaries, who were given Greek coins by such men as Alexander the Great in exchange for their services. The Celts then copied the idea and produced their own. The function of coins varied with time, he argues, starting out as `primitive valuables' which were used in gift-exchange, and only later changing into monetary tokens to be used in trade and exchange, as Iron Age societies altered after contact with the Roman world. By the 1st century AD, coins functioned in a primitive market economy.

Following a further section on the manufacture of coins, including a discussion on the extraordinary skill of die-cutters, who could produce designs for coins which measure barely 7mm across, de Jersey goes on to describe the main types of British Iron Age coins during the rest of the book. He sets out the most numerous coin types in the south-eastern `core' of Britain, and then describes the coinages of the `peripheral' areas which existed around the core. By such an approach, he avoids the difficulties of giving tribal attributions to coins where the evidence is unclear.

The photographs throughout are generally good, and show some previously unknown types as well as the better known coins. The myth that Boudica minted coins is once more put to bed, although it is unlikely, as de Jersey suggests, that the coins of her husband Prasutagus were minted after the Roman Conquest. It is more likely that their rarity results from the fact that very few were produced before the Conquest, after which the Romans prevented him from minting silver coins.

This short book is understandably limited in scope. However, as an up-to-date introduction to a complicated subject, it is readable, useful and good value.

Amanda Chadburn is an Inspector at English Heritage and a specialist in Iron Age coinage

THE DEFENCE OF WESSEX
eds D Hill and A Rumble
Manchester UP, £60.00
ISBN 0-7190-3218-0 hb

The Burghal Hidage is a list of 33 fortified sites in Wessex, compiled in the early 10th century, recording the number of taxation units assigned for their maintenance. It is a landmark in the early administrative history of Wessex and a valuable source for urban origins and topography. This book is the publication of a conference held in 1989 to review ideas about this important text, with some updating to incorporate subsequent research.

No contemporary manuscript of the Burghal Hidage survives, but the editors offer a new edition and discussion of its two versions using extant later copies. Other contributors analyse the place-names, examine the administrative background and the relationship between fortified sites, hides and shires, and discuss the parallel expansion of mints. Archaeologists have sometimes placed great faith in the formula given for calculating the length of defences from the hidage, and reasons why the calculated length sometimes fails to coincide with the actual length are explored.

The gazetteer describing the location of each site and summarising its history and archaeology is slightly disappointing. Archaeological references are inconsistently provided. The plans have the virtue of being all on the same scale, but are sketchy, some including roads, rivers, slopes and marshes, but others not, even where they may be significant. Some defensive circuits remain unknown or unproven, but the degree of uncertainty is not always evident on the maps. For example, Batt's speculative outline of Axbridge is reproduced, whereas Penn's more plausible postulation for Bridport is not. The defences attributed to Southampton are equated with Roman Bitterne, while suggestions from various observations since the 1960s that the burh defences may lie within the medieval walled town are nowhere acknowledged.

There is still a lack of consensus on many aspects of the Burghal Hidage, and this volume does not claim to provide definitive conclusions. Despite some reservations, however, it is welcome as the fullest discussion yet of this complex subject.

James Bond is a freelance landscape archaeologist based in North Somerset

VIRTUAL ARCHAEOLOGY
eds Maurizio Forte and Alberto Siliotti
Thames and Hudson, £29.95
ISBN 0-500-05085-06 hb

Mine is not an archaeology friendly family, yet when this book came into our household every one of them wanted to pore over it. There is no doubt, Maurizio Forte (Icarus Project), Alberto Siliotti (Verona's Centre for Archaeological Documentation) and their team of authors have produced a sumptuous book, packed with colour pictures and diagrams of some of the world's most exciting archaeological projects, and translated faultlessly from Italian to English. About 50 sites are included, concentrating on the ancient civilisations of Africa, Europe, the Near East, Asia and the Americas. As an introduction to these sites, and the cultures to which they belong, this is an excellent book.

However, to call it Virtual Archaeology and to specifically use the term `virtual reality' in the subtitle is highly misleading. Many but not all of the projects described do indeed use computer graphics to record or display data, and some have involved the simulation of the original appearance of monuments through computer modelling of existing remains, and virtual reconstruction of the monument on these foundations. A few of these, such as at Pompeii, are truly stunning.

In many cases, however, we are presented with screen shots of GIS and CAD packages showing the obligatory wireframe site-location model or building complex. When we see these in juxtaposition with the colour site-and-finds photography it is quite clear that they are fine as working tools but not, yet, suitable for presentation to the general public. To be fair, the editor was aware that the computer software used in these projects would be outmoded before the book was even in print and that the true value of many of these works cannot be appreciated in two dimensions; and he offers the tantalising hope that future editions will not be published on paper but made available through the Internet using Virtual Reality Markup Language and the World Wide Web.

Dr Alan Vince is the Managing Editor of Internet Archaeology

THE DEVELOPMENT OF TIMBER-FRAMED BUILDINGS IN THE WEALD
Diana Chatwin
Rudgwick Preservation Soc, £15.95
ISBN 0-907264-99-9 pb

Parish studies do not often make it to the pages of national magazines, but this study of the timber buildings in one West Sussex parish is a worthwhile exception. Rudgwick, in the Low Weald just west of Horsham, seems to have had a rather unstratified society, with a preponderance of yeomen. Their houses survive in exceptional numbers: 36 open halls, 25 smoke- bay houses, and 32 with chimneys from the start.

The book first traces the development of building traditions in the parish, the pattern being similar to that in Kent. The earliest medieval houses have simple common rafter roofs, with crown posts appearing in about 1400, succeeded by side purlins in about 1480. Smoke bays appear after 1550, and were only slowly superseded by brick chimneys after 1625.

The heart of the book describes 33 houses in detail, including some notable buildings. One of the earliest (c 1350) had a storage undercroft only about 4ft high, adjoining the hall, giving extra status to the chamber above. The two-bay houses of about 1400 are exceptionally small, only 10ft and 13ft wide; both are very rare survivals of medieval cottages. Equally remarkable are a back-to-back pair of smokebay cottages, each with just one floored bay as living space beside the narrow smokebay. They were built in about 1600, part of a substantial group of cottages established on the fringes of the parish commons, in response to population pressure.

The strength of the book lies in these descriptions, with all the character of individual buildings rather than generalised examples. It is, however, limited in its information about the people who lived in these houses. They only appear occasionally, generally in relation to ownership in the 19th century.

Dr Nat Alcock teaches chemistry at the University of Warwick and is a former President of the Vernacular Architecture Group