British Archaeology 94, May/June 2007

Round for a bender - Star letter

Fred Mustill

Re Andrew Lawson's intelligent speculations on 2nd millennia BC lifestyles and dwellings (The nomads of ancient Wessex, Mar/Apr). It is quite conceivable that the British roundhouse developed from a "bender" type dwelling used by a nomadic people. I find it a source of wonder that the ubiquitous British roundhouse form of bronze age through to Saxon times is almost completely absent in Europe. We are led to understand that Europe was the source of prehistoric cultures in Britain. Did the Celtic culture arrive here from its heartland and adapt to a native building type?

On my encounters with archaeological academics I have asked this and none have been forthcoming with any explanation, or in truth interest. The dome-like structure of benders, yurts and roundhouses are certainly efficient (see photo of "travellers" benders and a latter day roundhouse).

Anyone (egghead or otherwise) out there who would like to comment on this?

Fred Mustill, Penzance

Where's the bridge?

I ask in relation to the following passage from The Reeves Tale, contained within The Canterbury Tales.

At Trumpington, nat fer fro Cambridge
There goth a brook, and over that a bridge
Upon which brook ther stant a melle;

Does anything in an archaeological sense still exist of the Brook, Bridge or Mill? I ask because I was named after the character Aleyn in The Reeves Tale.

I question the statement in the review of The Archaeology of Mills and Milling by Martin Watts (Books, Mar 2003) in reference to The Miller, and the behaviour attributed to him. That of a drunken thieving bully etc probably came about after many years of training as a miller, and after he became disillusioned with a wife who was "as digne as water in a ditch" and "ful of hoker and bismare".

Leisure interest

Are there any readers who are members of the Institute of Field Archaeology but no longer employed in archaeology? I have recently renewed my membership after 15 years. As my interest in archaeology is no longer "professional" in the sense of paid employment, I am attempting to form a suitable special interest group to look at issues relevant to leisure-time archaeologists.

Under IFA by-laws I need the names of at least 15 members to express an interest, some of whom must take honorary posts (I am putting myself forward as candidate for acting honorary chair in the first instance).

Pass

In Requiem (Mar/Apr) you used the term "passed on". In this day and age, is this not a euphemism too far? It implies people have moved to a different place, and I suspect that very many of your readers, being scientists, have a rational bent. "Passed away" is surely more acceptable to the majority, religious or rational.

Think of the client

Why am I unsurprised that Ian Hodder finds it "quite easy to write" (My Archaeology, Mar/Apr) and makes "very, very few changes before it [is] published"? "Everybody nowadays wants to say something about what is personhood like?" Pardon?

Hodder clearly does not value the role of an editor – and I suspect that his approach to excavation may be very similar. Excavation is a skilled technical process designed to best record information – but not one that is geared to the excavator alone.

Dover hole

In The Times of November 13 2006 there was an interesting article about finds in Salcombe, from your publication (Nov/Dec). Can anyone identify another find?

On a walk along the rocks under the South Foreland chalk cliffs near St Margaret's Bay, Kent, an interesting object was found close to the base of the cliff (photo below). Have you any ideas of its use – such as whet stone, fishing weight, handle or ceremonial axe-head? Dover Museum has not been able to help. It is a black stone which appears to be sedimentary, and probably had not been on the rocks that long as there appears to be very little wear or damage. This suggests it arrived recently via a cliff fall, unless it washed out of a shipwreck.

It is 124mm long, 53–32 mm wide, 18mm deep, weight approx 250g. The hole appears "perfect" on the "flat" side but worn on the "fat" side, hence the thought it might have been used as a handle turning a shaft.

Taj, mate

They must verify the existence of the Bosnian pyramids one way or the other (feature, Jan/Feb). A pyramid in Bosnia has two things going for it.

1. It is possible that Egyptians might row their ships into the Black Sea, up the Danube, and into Bosnia to build a pyramid at the edge of their empire.

2. Greek legends that a palace to Kronos up on the mountain is home of Zeus, and the other Greek gods.

Considering the resistance that Osmanagic and his amateur archaeology is getting, I am loath to suggest that in the fifteenth century, Islamic explorers established a port and mosque the size of the Taj Mahal in Darwin Harbor (Australia) only to haveit wiped away by five centuries of tidal waves, monsoon, cyclone, earth quake, bush fire, insect-carried diseases, and natives hostile to conversion.

Why an Islamic port and mosque? In the native language and culture is a figure called the Kadaich: an assassin who toils for the elders eliminating young warriors, something that emerges about five hundred years ago in local culture and comes from an Islamic word for magistrate. You don't drop a magistrate off and sail away. You build a port, and convert the locals. Good luck to Semir Osmanagic and his Bosnian pyramid.

Deadly but pretty

Your readers might be interested in these elegant architect-designed village defences incorporated into a gateway overlooking the valley floor of the Glaslyn river at Llanfrothen Gwynedd; a small roadside village with many buildings designed, or modified by the architect Clough Williams-Ellis. An elegant circular dry stone folly across the road might also have provided a site for a machine gun. Alittle further along the road a home guard look-out post (which only narrowly escaped demolition in a recent road widening scheme), was sited on the bluff directly above the Brondanw entrance gatehouse (Welsh – gatws) on the Croesor road as a part of these defences. Since he had military experience (major ww1) it could be that his famous architectural essay the coastal village of Portmeirion would also bear examination from this point of view!

Having walked past these gun loops for years it was only as a result of reading British Archaeology that it registered that they were not merely decorative details!

Elusive book

I spent most of last year, trying to order The Work of Giants: Stone & Quarrying in Roman Britain (Books, Nov/Dec) pre-publication and after the stated publication date.

• Books are reviewed as they come out (hence no year noted), after publication. Many are from specialist publishers, and will not be stocked by all retailers, least of all supermarkets. If you have difficulty finding a title, please contact the editor.

History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.
Stephen Dedalus in Ulysses, James Joyce.

Please send your ideas for the magazine: we may not publish them all, but we will read and take notice. Ed

We welcome letters from readers. They may be emailed to Mike Pitts the Editor at editor@britarch.ac.uk or faxed to 01904 671384. They may be edited.

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Issue 94

May/June 2007

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