One of archaeology’s distinctive features has always been the lack of hard boundaries between professional and amateur. Archaeology is perhaps unique in the degree to which anyone can participate in the discipline, even at the highest level. That is especially true of the Association for Roman Archaeology (ARA), where academics and field archaeologists meet on equal terms to explore our Roman heritage with keen amateurs.
As an ARA member, you can expect an informative colour magazine to arrive in the post three times a year containing original research including reports on new discoveries explored in depth, along with field-trip reports that will tempt you to join one or more of the society’s study tours. On offer this year are overseas visits to Turin and Aosta in Italy, and to Aegean Turkey, as well as guided walks around Roman London. In each case, you can be sure of travelling with a group of people who are willing to share knowledge not only of archaeology, but often of geology, wildlife, music, art, literature, wine, and food all adding up to a revelation of life as it was lived in Antiquity and beyond.
For example, inscriptions abound in the Roman world, and some of your travelling companions will help you work out what they say (both the formulaic bits and the more human insights): epitaphs written by a grieving widow for a much-missed soldier husband; tales of slaves who later grew rich as shopkeepers; and altars erected in thanks for a bargain with the gods fulfilled.
Online lectures are provided every few weeks: currently you can enjoy a virtual visit to Etruscan and Roman Italy or discover how the Portable Antiquities Scheme has transformed our understanding of a Romano-British settlement at Flexford, Surrey, where the unusual pattern of coin loss suggests there may have been a busy market.
As if that were not enough, membership also gives you free entry to 44 major museums and sites around the UK, from the Isle of Wight to the Antonine Wall. The ARA’s Annual Dinner is held at a significant Roman site in Britain, with a long-weekend summer tour, and the AGM takes place in November at the British Museum in London with a Symposium of four speakers in conjunction with the Roman Society. One of the main aims of the ARA is to support fieldwork and publication; needless to say, volunteers play a fundamental role in the projects to which the ARA gives grants.
Further information: www.associationromanarchaeology.org
IMAGES: AC King and Nich Hogben Is there a society that you would like to see profiled? Write to theeditor@archaeology.co.uk
