Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-c9gpj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-09T05:09:14.589Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

An Assemblage of Palaeolithic Hand-Axes from the Roman Religious Complex at Ivy Chimneys, Witham, Essex

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 April 2011

Extract

This paper describes the context and nature of an assemblage of forty-four Palaeolithic hand-axes from a Roman religious site at Witham, Essex. The hand-axes are considered to have been derived from several sources, and it is suggested that the Romano-British occupants of the site deliberately selected them for their shape and placed them in the bottom of two large man-made depressions. In the light of stone axe finds on continental temple sites, and of classical Roman texts and traditions, the possibility arises that the Witham finds may have represented ‘thunderbolts’ in the worship of Jupiter or a local Celtic equivalent.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1987

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

1 O.S. grid reference TL 811136. The excavations were directed by Robin Turner for Essex County Council and the Department of the Environment. The authors would like to thank Hazel Martingell and Margaret Tremayne, who illustrated the flints, and Roger Massey-Ryan and Margaret Matthews who prepared figs. 1 and 2. We are grateful to Martin Henig who kindly read and commented on the paper.

2 See Turner, R., Ivy Chimneys, Witham: An Interim Report, Essex County Counc. Occ. Pap. 2 (Chelmsford, 1982)Google Scholar; and id., Excavations of an Iron Age Settlement and Roman Religious Complex at Ivy Chimneys, Witham, Essex, 1978-83, E. Anglian Arch, (forthcoming).

3 Whitaker, W., Penning, W. H., Dalton, W. H. and Bennett, F. J., The Geology of the NW part of Essex and the NE part of Herts., with parts of Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, Memoir Geol. Survey England & Wales (London, 1878)Google Scholar.

4 Haggard, H. J. E., ‘The sand and gravel resources of the country around Witham, Essex’, Inst. Geol. Sci. Assessment ofBritish Sand and Gravel Resources, ii (1972), 190Google Scholar.

5 Geological Survey of Great Britain, Geological Sheet TL 81 (Solid and Drift) Witham 1:25,000 (1972).

6 Bristow, C. R. and Cox, F. C., ‘The Gipping Till: a re-appraisal of East Anglian glacial stratigraphy’, J. Geol. Soc. London, cxxix (1973), 137CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 e.g. Clayton, K. M., ‘Some aspects of the glacial deposits of Essex’, Proc. Geol. Assoc. lxviii (1957), 121CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Clayton, K. M., ‘The landforms of parts of southern Essex’, Trans. Inst. Brit. Geogr. xxviii (1960), 5574Google Scholar; Rose, J. and Allen, P., ‘Middle Pleistocene stratigraphy in south-east Suffolk’, J. Geol. Soc. London, cxxxiii (1) (1977), 83102CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Turner, C., ‘The Middle Pleistocene deposits at Marks Tey, Essex’, Phil. Trans. Royal Soc. London B, cclvii (1970), 373440CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Mitchell, G. F., Penny, L. F., Shotton, F. W. and West, R. G., ‘A correlation of Quaternary deposits in the British Isles’, Geol. Soc. London Special Rep. iv (1973), 199Google Scholar.

10 Rose, and Allen, , op. cit. (note 7)Google Scholar.

11 Clayton, (1960), op. cit. (note 7)Google Scholar.

12 R. D. Lake and D. Wilson, pers. comm.

13 One of a number between Witham and Colchester, including Marks Tey.

14 Bristow, C. R., Geology of the Country around Chelmsford, Memoir Brit. Geol. Survey (London, 1985)Google Scholar.

15 Turner, C., ‘The Blackwater Valley’, in Rose, J. and Turner, C., Guide to the Clacton Meeting, Quaternary Res. Assoc. (Cambridge, 1973)Google Scholar.

16 Wymer, J. J., ‘The Lower Palaeolithic site at Hoxne’, Proc. Suffolk Inst. Arch. & Hist, xxxv (1983), 169–89Google Scholar.

17 Wymer, J. J., The Palaeolithic Sites of East Anglia (Norwich, 1985), 252–4Google Scholar.

18 Whitaker, el al., op. cit. (note 3)Google Scholar.

19 Martingell, H. E., ‘Lithic chance finds’, in Priddy, D. (ed.), ‘Work of the Essex County Council Archaeology Section 1983-4’, Essex Arch. & Hist. xvi (1986), 82–3Google Scholar.

20 Whitaker, W., ‘Palaeolithic flake from Kelvedon, Essex’, Essex Nat. xiii (1984), 256Google Scholar.

21 Wymer, , op. cit. (note 17), 252Google Scholar.

22 Wilson, D. R., ‘Roman Britain in 1972. I. Sites explored’, Britannia, iii (1972), 333Google Scholar.

23 Wymer, , op. cit. (note 17), 253Google Scholar.

24 Healey, E., ‘The post-Palaeolithic flint artefacts’, in Turner, (forthcoming), op. cit. (note 2). The Witham polished axe fragment was small and virtually unrecognizable to the untrained eyeGoogle Scholar.

25 Wymer, J. J., Lower Palaeolithic Archaeology in Britain (London, 1968), 50–1Google Scholar.

26 Wymer, J. J., ‘Excavations at Barnfield Pit, 1955-1960’, in Ovey, C. D. (ed.), The Swanscombe Skull, Royal Anthropol. Inst. Occ. Pap. 20 (1964), 1961Google Scholar; Wymer, , op. cit. (note 25), 338–46Google Scholar.

27 Wymer, , op. cit. (note 17), 198202Google Scholar.

28 Wilson, , op. cit. (note 22)Google Scholar.

29 Smith, I. F., ‘Notes on two stone axe-heads’, in Wedlake, W. J., The Excavation of the Shrine of Apollo at Nettleton, Wiltshire, 1956-1971, Soc. Antiq. London Res. Rep. 40 (London, 1982), 181Google Scholar.

30 Penn, W. S., ‘Springhead: Temples II and V’, Arch. Cantiana, lxxvii (1962), 132Google Scholar.

31 Goodchild, R. G., ‘Martin Tupper and Farley Heath’, Surrey Arch. Coll. xlvi (1938), 23Google Scholar: L. and Adkins, R. A., ‘Neolithic axes from Roman sites in Britain’, Oxford J. Arch, iv (1) (1985), 72 (site 29)Google Scholar.

32 Frere, S. S., ‘A survey of archaeology near Lancing’, Sussex Arch. Coll. lxxxi (1940), 169Google Scholar.

33 Adkins, , op. cit. (note 31), 72 (site 16)Google Scholar.

34 Drewett, P. L., ‘The flint industry’, in Bedwin, O., ‘Excavations at Chanctonbury Ring, Wiston, West Sussex 1977’, Britannia, xi (1980), 195Google Scholar.

35 Wedlake, W. J., The Excavation of the Shrine of Apollo at Nettleton, Wiltshire, 1956-1971, Soc. Antiq. London Res. Rep. 40 (London, 1982), ixGoogle Scholar.

36 Ross, A., ‘Shafts, pits, wells—sanctuaries of the Belgic Britons?’, in Coles, J. M. and Simpson, D. D. A. (eds.), Studies in Ancient Europe (Leicester, 1968), 258 and 264Google Scholar.

37 Home, P. D. and King, A. C.. ‘Romano-Celtic temples in continental Europe: a gazetteer of those with known plans’, in Rodwell, W. J. (ed.), Temples, Churches and Religion in Roman Britain, Brit. Arch. Rep. 77 (1980), 369555Google Scholar.

38 A small fragment of fossil fish scales in a red-brown mudstone, possibly a glacial erratic.

39 Two studies of relevance were undertaken by Oakley, K. P.: Decorative and Symbolic Uses of Vertebrate Fossils, Pitt Rivers Mus., Oxford, Occ. Pap. Technology 10 (1975)Google Scholar; and Decorative and Symbolic Uses of Fossils: Selected Groups, mainly Invertebrate, Pitt Rivers Mus., Oxford, Occ. Pap. Technology 13 (1985)Google Scholar.

40 Perowne, S., Roman Mythology, 2nd edn. (London, 1983), 17Google Scholar.

41 Evans, J., The Ancient Stone Implements, Weapons and Ornaments of Great Britain, 2nd edn. (London, 1872), 5566Google Scholar.

42 Blinkenberg, C., The Thunderweapon in Religion and Folklore; a Study in Comparative Archaeology (Cambridge, 1911).Google Scholar See also Bonner, C., Studies in Magical Amulets, Chiefly Graeco-Roman (Univ. Michigan, 1950)Google Scholar, esp. note 33 concerning a celt with Zeus inscription.

43 Green, M. J., ‘Tanarus, Taranis and the Chester Altar’, J. Chester Arch. Soc. lxv (1982), 3744Google Scholar; ead., ‘Jupiter, Taranis and the solar wheel’, in Henig, M. and King, A. (eds.), Pagan Gods and Shrines of the Roman Empire, Oxford Univ. Comm. Arch. Monograph ser. 8 (Oxford, 1986), 6575Google Scholar.

44 Bauchhenss, G. and Noelke, P., Die Iupitersäulen in den germanischen Provinzen (Köln, 1981)Google Scholar.

45 Hertlein, F., Die Jupitergigantensäulen (Stuttgart, 1910), 9Google Scholar.

46 Wightman, E. M., Roman Trier and the Treveri (London, 1970), 225Google Scholar.

47 Bauchhenss, and Noelke, , op. cit. (note 44)Google Scholar.

48 Wightman, , op. cit. (note 46), 224Google Scholar; Home, P. D., ‘A preliminary survey of Romano-Celtic temples (excluding Britain)’, unpubl. B.Sc. dissertation, Univ. London Inst. Arch. (1979), 19Google Scholar.

49 Bauchhenss, G., Iupitergigantensäulen (Stuttgart, 1976), pl. 1Google Scholar.

50 Espérandieu, E., Recueil Général des Bas Reliefs de la Gaule romaine (Paris, 1907-1966), 4425Google Scholar.

51 Drury, P. J., ‘Preliminary report. The Romano-British settlement at Chelmsford, Essex: Caesaromagus’, Essex Arch. & Hist. iv (1972), 329Google Scholar.

52 Neal, D. S., ‘A sanctuary at Wood End Lane, Hemel Hempstead’, Britannia, xv (1984), 205–6Google Scholar; the religious use of the site is dated to the second century A.D.