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The Excavation of the Roman Theatre at Gosbecks

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2011

Rosalind Dunnett
Rosalind Dunnett
Affiliation:
County Museum, Aylesbury
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Extract

The Romano-British theatre at Gosbecks is situated in the parish of Stanway, three miles west of the colonia at Colchester on a small promontory between the Roman river and a lesser tributary. It lies on the eastern edge of a thirty-acre area which was covered in Roman times by numerous buildings including a possible bath-building, the large Gosbecks temple standing within its own temenos, and a massive walled ‘fairground’. The theatre lies 125 yards due south of the temple and may well have stood within the ‘fairground’. The entire area (FIG. I) falls into a class of rural site widespread in Roman Gaul where large temples are associated with theatre, mansio and bath-buildings, but where private houses and town walls are absent.

Type
Articles
Information
Britannia , Volume 2 , November 1971 , pp. 27 - 47
Copyright
Copyright © Rosalind Dunnett 1971. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 Hull, M. R., Roman Colchester, Oxford 1958, 259–70.Google Scholar

2 e.g. Berthouville, , Antiq.Journ. viii, 322; Champlieu, Grenier, Manuel d'Archeolagie Gallo-Romaine, 181, fig. 10Google Scholar; Bulletin Monumental 28 (1868), p. 421Google Scholar; Drevant, , Bulletin Monumental 31 (1860) p. 100Google Scholar, Gallia xix (1961), p. 327Google Scholar; Castillon, Le Mont, Gallia vii (1949), p. 114Google Scholar; Sanxay, , Trier Jahresberichte, III, 62 ffGoogle Scholar, Gallia, iii (1944), 43–120, fig. 28Google Scholar; Evreux, Le Vieux, Antiq. Journ. viii, 320; Woodeaton, covering 50 acres, may turn out to be another British example.Google Scholar

3 Journ. Brit. Arch. Assn., xi (1885), 48.Google Scholar

4 No sign of these excavations was found in 1967 or in the previous excavations by Mr. Hull.

5 Miss P. Cullen, Messrs. D. Kidd, N. Reed and C. Young. Also to Miss E. Waite who ran the pottery shed.

6 In particular to Mr. D. T-D. Clarke, Curator of the Colchester and Essex Museum and to his assistant, Mr. D. G. Davies. I am also most grateful to Professor S. S. Frere for reading the draft of this text and for many helpful comments.

7 Hawkes, C. F. C. and Hull, M. R., Camulodunum (Oxford 1947), 10–12.Google Scholar

8 They may have supported timber seats in the orchestra. Vitruvius, v, vi 2.

9 Professor Frere suggests that this depression might have resulted from the digging out of a large tree, and the resultant hollow then filled with turfy material before the construction of the wooden theatre.

10 Professor Frere has drawn my attention to an inscription mentioning an apparently timber theatre of Claudian date at Feurs near Lyons. ILS 5639 = CIL xiii 1642. Divo Augusto sacrum pro salute Ti. Claudi Caesaris August. Germ. Ti. Claudius Arucae fil. Capita sacerdos Aug. theatrum quod Lupus Anthi f. ligneum posuerat d.s.p. lapideum restituit.

11 This estimate allows a thickness of 4 in. for each turf. At the base of the mound they were compressed to 1½ in. Approximately 73,000 square yards of turf of this thickness would be needed.

12 This estimate assumes that the cavea mound reached up to the top of the cavea wall and sloped down to ground-level at the orchestra. It is likely, however, that the base of the cavea was some feet higher than the Phase 2 orchestra floor.

13 That at the end of the south-west cavea wall was first recorded by Mr. Hull. It was re-excavated in 1967.

14 Vitruvius, v, vi 2.

15 This assumes that the stairs led up to the top of the wall. It is possible however that the height of the mound was less than that of the wall, which would then have projected above it. In this case the stairs presumably would only have led to an opening through the wall, level with the top of the cavea mound.

16 Hull, M. R., Roman Colchester (Oxford 1958), 296.Google Scholar

17 As at the Verulamium theatre, Archaeologia lxxxiv, 225–6.

18 See pp. 44–6, pottery report No. 8 and coin report No. 2.

19 Archaeologia lxxxiv, 242–7.

20 Baudot, M., Gallia ii (1943), 191–206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 Hawkes, C. F. C. and Hull, M. R., Camulodunum, Oxford 1947, 9–12.Google Scholar

22 Colchester Museum Report, 1937, pl. XIII, Nos. 8–10. See also Cunliffe, B. W., Fifth Report on the Excavation of The Roman Fort at Richborough, Oxford 1968, Pl. xxxix, No. 142.Google Scholar

23 I am grateful to D. G. Davies for drawings Nos. 1–3.

24 Hull, M. R., The Roman Potters' Kilns at Colchester, Oxford 1964, 112–13.Google Scholar

25 Probably related to Camulodunum form 251.