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<\/p>\nCBM at Silchester<\/b><\/p>\n
By Dr Sara Machin – CBM specialist for the the Silchester Project<\/p>\n
Ceramic building materials (CBM) typically represent the largest category of artefacts recorded at Romano British sites.\u00a0\u00a0Subject to selective retention policies, the potential of CBM to contribute to our knowledge and understanding of the construction industry and the development of both individual buildings and settlements more generally is often overlooked.\u00a0\u00a0CBM was a new technology introduced within the first decade of the Roman conquest of Britain and was a very visible sign of Roman influence.<\/p>\n
My recently completed PhD study comprised a\u00a0detailed analysis of the fabric and forms of\u00a0all the CBM retained from excavations at the Roman town of\u00a0Calleva<\/i>\u00a0Atrebatum<\/i>, Silchester.\u00a0\u00a0The\u00a0project\u00a0employed detailed\u00a0recording\u00a0and multidisciplinary scientific analysis, portable X-ray fluorescence and thin section petrography,\u00a0to investigate a large urban ceramic building material assemblage.\u00a0\u00a0It has demonstrated\u00a0the potential of existing CBM\u00a0archives\u00a0to\u00a0add to site narratives by illustrating the variability within areas of the\u00a0Roman\u00a0town, between public and private building projects and\u00a0throughout its Roman history.\u00a0\u00a0The results have shown\u00a0that the ubiquitous brick and tile, too long neglected, can provide a wealth of interesting data.<\/p>\n
By comparing the fabric series with samples of local clay resources it has been possible to ascertain the\u00a0geological\u00a0formations\u00a0that were exploited to produce the ceramic building materials.\u00a0\u00a0A fabric series of the material\u00a0has been\u00a0established, comprising nine fabric groups.\u00a0 The results have shown a reliance on local raw materials, with\u00a0London Clay Formation<\/i>\u00a0sources dominating the collection (c.50%).\u00a0\u00a0The CBM requirements at\u00a0Roman\u00a0Silchester were met by a small number of production centres supplying most of the building materials, with four fabric groups accounting for almost 90% of the material.\u00a0\u00a0Some long-distance movement of materials has been identified, demonstrating the long-distance trade of standard bricks and roofing material as well as specialist products in the form of relief-patterned flue tiles.<\/p>\n
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The Silchester materials\u00a0show variation in terms of\u00a0the consumption of different\u00a0fabrics\u00a0over the life of the town.\u00a0\u00a0Ceramic building material\u00a0can have a complex history of use, re-use, and disposal.\u00a0\u00a0Therefore, even in the early phases of the development of Silchester, there is the potential for the re-use of material.<\/p>\n
The current excavations at the bathhouse complex will\u00a0provide\u00a0a large assemblage of material which can be added to the data already collated for my PhD project.\u00a0 The standing remains\u00a0uncovered\u00a0during the Society of\u00a0Antiquaries\u00a0excavation of the bathhouse, if still present, will\u00a0provide a rare opportunity to record the fabrics of the CBM contained within structures, rather than working from existing archive materials.\u00a0\u00a0The chronology of fabrics established for my PhD project can be tested using phasing of the bathhouse construction.\u00a0\u00a0The public baths\u00a0were located in\u00a0the south-east quarter of the town\u00a0beside\u00a0the spring supplying their water.\u00a0 They were among the earliest Roman buildings in the town,\u00a0oriented at an angle of 9\u00b0 to the street grid and assumed to pre-date it.\u00a0\u00a0Ceramic tiles found at Silchester bearing the abbreviated name and titles of the Emperor Nero (r. AD 54-68) evidence imperial support for the development of early Roman\u00a0Calleva<\/i>.\u00a0 These tiles were manufactured at the brickworks at Little London, about 3km to the south of the town.\u00a0 Such tiles have been found in Britain only at\u00a0Calleva<\/i>\u00a0and Little London.\u00a0 The proposed early date for the public baths make this a candidate for the Neronian building project.\u00a0 Brick and tile in the fabric originating from the Little London tilery\u00a0peaks in contexts\u00a0dated to the\u00a0Claudio-Neronian\/Pre-Flavian phases of the town (c.AD43-68).\u00a0\u00a0If this\u00a0distinctive\u00a0fabric\u00a0can be identified\u00a0in the earliest phases of the bathhouse\u00a0it\u00a0would support the proposed early Roman date for the bathhouse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"