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The Llantwit Major Villa: A reconsideration of the evidence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2011

A. H. A. Hogg
Affiliation:
Brynfield, Waun Fawr, Aberystwyth

Abstract

A small re-excavation of part of this villa has removed some apparent discrepancies in the evidence for the structural development of the buildings, and taken in conjunction with the published material has made a new and more detailed interpretation possible. The results of the excavation are summarized in the text on pp. 227-8, and the deductions as to the history of the villa on pp. 236-7.

Type
Articles
Information
Britannia , Volume 5 , November 1974 , pp. 225 - 250
Copyright
Copyright © A. H. A. Hogg 1974. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 Storrie, J. C., Cardiff Naturalists Soc. Trans. xx (1808), 50 ff.Google Scholar The site is 15 miles W.S.W. of Cardiff SS 958699.

2 Nash-Williams, V. E., Arch. Cambrensis cii (1953), 89163.Google Scholar The plan used here is based on his.

3 Smith, D. J. in Rivet, A. L. F. (ed.), The Roman Villa in Britain (London, 1969), 77, n. 4. And now see pp. 248–50.Google Scholar

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5 Morris, J., ‘The dates of the Celtic saints’, Journ. Theological Studies N.S. xviii, pt. 2 (1966), 379.Google Scholar

6 Rooms are numbered as by Nash-Williams (note 2 p. 225).

7 This photograph is now published in the Royal Commission's Glamorgan Inventory, vol. i, part 2 (H.M.S.O., 1974, forthcoming)Google Scholar.

8 Arch. Cambrensis, 1888, 144, from The Athenaeum, 20 October, 1888, no. 3182. The note seems to be an independent description by some visitor who did not depend on Storrie for his information, for the dimensions given are incorrect throughout; but the rooms are all identifiable.

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11 A relevant comparison is found at Poundbury, Dorset, where six burials occupied the whole floor of a building 5 m × 4 m (3·3 m2 per burial): Britannia ii (1971), 280, fig. 13Google Scholar.

12 Most renderings of Fortuna have the globe and rudder on her right side, but a lost example, formerly in Luxembourg, , Espérandieu v, 361Google Scholar, no. 4247, is shown with rudder and globe on her left.

13 Thanks are due to Mr. D. Emlyn Evans of the Geology Department of the National Museum of Wales for identifying the stone of the Fortuna statue.

14 Storrie, loc. cit. (note i), facing p. 132. The coloured drawing is the original for the lithograph by I. John (1888).

15 To the records cited above (p. 244, note 14) must be added a coloured drawing by G. E. Fox in the Fox Collection (Box 2, no. 56) of the Society of Antiquaries of London.

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18 Cf. idem., Antiq. Journ. xlix (1969), 235-43.

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24 Ibid, xlv (1965), 102-4, Pl. XXXIIIa; ibid, xlix (1969), 236-7, pl. XXXVIIIa.

25 Unpublished. I am indebted to the Curator, The City Museum, Gloucester, for photographs of the fragments of this mosaic in situ, and to Mr. David S. Neal for making available to me his reconstruction painting based on the fragments.

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29 RCHM (Eng.) London: iii (Roman London) (1928), pls. 39, 48.

30 See note 20.

31 Cf. Antiq. Journ. xlix (1969), 242Google Scholar, n. 4.

32 Smith, D. J., ‘Three fourth-century schools of mosaic in Roman Britain’, in La Mosaïque Gréco-Romaine (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, 1965)Google Scholar; idem, in RVB, 95-102.

33 For Kenchester, and hence certainly also Bishopstone, see RIB 2250; cf. Jarrett, M. G. and Mann, J. C., Welsh History Review 4, no. 2 (1968), 170–1Google Scholar, n. 44.

34 Mosaic 2 of 1968: Antiq. Journ. xlix (1969), 236–7Google Scholar, pl. XXXXVIIIa.

35 Mosaic of 1971: PDANHS xciii (1972), 146–51Google Scholar, figs. 10-13; Britannia iii (1972), 346Google Scholar, pl. XXIIV A. XXV A.

36 Mosaic of 1972: PDANHS xciv (1973), 7880Google Scholar, fig. 3.