Basingstoke Archaeological and Historical Society (From Basingstoke Gazette)
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Basingstoke Archaeological and Historical Society
11:09am Tuesday 8th February 2011 in Reports
THE society’s programme of monthly lectures resumed on January 13, when ‘Amphitheatres in Roman Britain’ was the topic chosen by speaker Tony Wilmott, of English Heritage.
Amphitheatres were a uniquely Roman invention and their legacy to us is the sports stadium.
In Britain, amphitheatres do not conform to any standard specification and may or may not have had formal seating arrangements and facilities to accommodate animals.
This implies that they were not necessarily constructed solely for the purpose of gladiatorial combat and/or having Christians and other undesirables eaten by lions as shown in Hollywood films such as The Fall of the Roman Empire and more recently Gladiator, that feature the Coliseum in Rome where such events did occur.
There is, in fact, little or no evidence in Britain of anything similar ever happening here, and while some amphitheatres, like Silchester, are situated close to urban sites, others are in altogether more remote places.
The speaker therefore concluded that while the staging of gladiatorial and wild animal spectacles cannot be ruled out at some British amphitheatres, those sited near or within urban areas may well have been multi-purpose facilities that could have been used for ceremony or assembly, while those standing alone in rural places were quite probably constructed for religious purposes.
Volunteer field workers among the society membership have been restricted this winter to indoor activity associated with the Bronze Age site on the Wessex Downs but with improving weather conditions they are turning their immediate attention to woodland archaeology survey while looking further forward to excavation at the Roman site at Basing House in May.
Arrangements have been made for a pottery study day on Saturday, March 19, supervised by Lorraine Mepham, of Wessex Archaeology, and planning is under way for a members’ group visit to archaeological sites of interest in Pembrokeshire for five days from June 30.
The next meeting will be held at Church Cottage at 7.30pm on Thursday, February 10, when the lecturer will be Kris Strutt, of Southampton University, whose subject will be ‘Archaeological Surveying in Syria and Egypt’.
Non-members are welcome at an admission price of £2.
