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Defending the Demetae
I enjoyed the fascinating feature on the wonderful Halberton Roman villa in CA 438. By a happy coincidence, the day before, I had visited Carmarthenshire Museum, which has recently renovated its galleries, including the Roman display for Moridunum, the tribal capital town of the Demetae in Roman times. The gallery contains this polychrome mosaic fragment, possibly just edging out Halberton as the most westerly example found. Oystermouth church on Gower, a little further east, also has a fragment of a mosaic floor built into an inside wall, but that may be more borderline in the westerly challenge, particularly if the map is drawn by a Roman cartographer!
Not to get too tribal about it, but I felt Demetian honour needed to be upheld…
John Roche, Pembrokeshire
Stonehenge
Hardy called it ‘Temple of the Winds’;
A tourist from down under dubbed it ‘just a load of stones’.
Rather, it is the icon of a distant age.
Named but recently, it stands stonily among its varied widespread kin.
Its shape, known universally, betokens extremity of old-ness and mystery;
Its solidity, defying all the ages since, remains merely an X-ray of a culture,
Skeletal, a partial piece of evidence revealing much, concealing so much more –
The soft tissue long-since lost, simply swallowed by the whirlpool of millennia.
However much we dig, discover, speculate, and challenge legend, one question
Remains; futile perhaps, but fundamental – being of our shared humanity:
Who were they?
Extraordinary humans, yes; societal, ingenious, skilful, testing their limits.
As they test ours.
We hear not their voices, nor read their words; we only, eternally and simply, see the stones.
Their stones.
Dr Martin Davies, Langton Green, Kent
Edible Archaeology
This is the cake made for the last day of our dig at East Wear Bay in Folkestone. It is three layers of pistachio sponge (for the Folkestone greensand), vanilla sponge dyed grey (for the Gault clay), and chocolate sponge with chocolate chip inclusions (for the subsoil) decorated with various tools.
I’d also like to say a big thank you to all the students and volunteers we’ve had on the site this year – they’ve done a fantastic job!
Heather Hanson, Folkestone
CA ONLINE: What you shared with us this month
Almost Archaeology @almostarch.bsky.social
‘Rendering the familiar unfamiliar.’
Great stuff from @johnschofyork.bsky.social in the latest @current
archaeology.bsky.social
‘Contemporary archaeology gives us the tools to interrogate the material traces of our own lives…reminding us that the present is already becoming the past.’
https://the-past.com/feature/unearthing-the-present-why-archaeologists-should-study-the-contemporary-world
NTS-Archaeology @nts-archaeology.bsky.social
Published today – read our article about archaeological work on the Scottish island of Staffa. #CA439 #coverstory@currentarchaeology.bsky.social
Antiquity Journal @antiquity.ac.uk
Investigations at Haughey’s Fort, Northern Ireland, suggest it was part of an important Bronze Age ritual landscape #AntiquityResearch #ArchaeologyNews via @currentarchaeolgoy.bsky.social
https://the-past.com/news/signs-of-bronze-age-settlement-at-haugheys-fort/
