Stone chapter sketch - 23rd March 2021

Three main parts

Methods and approaches

Overview

Thematic Issues

What has been used before and what studied?

What do we know so far?

What issues are interesting but glossed over or require further research?

Methods and approaches

Building stone, but also monumental stone?

Freestone a more precise description?

freestone good as excludes much roofing and flooring stone

Not all building stones were freestones, however

If limiting myself to building stone, I may actually be excluding most studies of stone in Roman Britain :(

Techniques

visual ID

Petrography

XRD

ICP-MS

pXRF

NAA?

SEM-EDS

Low power mag

Peveler 2018

BRBP

Peacock

Peveler

Hayward

Most people?

Includes Hayward at Silchester and alot of CBM specialists, e.g. Betts and Poole and Shaffrey

Inscriptions and carvings? Forms?

Dominant and most extensive type of study

Rarely reveal stuff about the stone itself, although sometimes sheds light on stone industry and organisation, e.g. Sulinus at Cirencester or procurator inscription at Bath

Once or twice forms of columns have been used to understand spread of traditions or even products from a center, e.g. school of north-east Gaul in Bath carvings, or spread of 'bath stone' column drums at certain sites

Overview

Hayward proposed changes between importance of different stone quarrying centres throughout the Roman period

This work based on monumental stone (which may represent rare high quality imports rather than systematic building material)

When did quarrying begin in province? Who is meant to have started it? Is there any awareness of the development of these industries? When did it stop?

Important to include a paragraph here discussing the limitations of analysis of building stone, and particularly the lack of identification of quarry sites in southern Britain as a product of later quarrying at same locations

Legionaries are probably those who started it, but Gaulish craftsmen may have followed

Graffiti at quarry sites

Thematic Issues

Adoption of stone quarrying in Britain

Discuss prehistoric quarrying, including Neolithic and Iron Age

Clearly prehistoric communities understood their local environments and range of resources

Quarrying for whetstones/quernstones/temper/soil more widespread than building stone (as common to lowland regions too) but clearly demonstrates extraction at certain points on a limited scale

Stone use at Ham Hill, and to a much lesser extent Bath, during IA indicates that extraction and presence already appreciated in the region

Given that there was stone extraction in Britain (though largely not for building) implies that Legions may have exploited local knowledge rather than prospecting from scratch. Indeed Blagg observed that most Roman provinces had a tradition in quarrying prior to Roman arrival, and as such the Romans would not have been experienced prospectors => reevaluate early Roman quarrying in Britain and contextualise this with existing Iron Age use of resources

Holistic Building Stone extraction

Relationship of building stone industries with other bulk materials

CBM

Coal

Movement of these materials part of a web of interactions? Did building stone moving one way facilitate reverse movement of other goods?

London CBM? Verulamium white wares to Somerset?

Relationship between stone tiles (and indeed building stone and tufa more widely) and CBM in later Roman period

Tesserae and mosaics

wide range of stone and CBM used in mosaics, but how were these materials chosen and exploited? Were they waste from quarrying/tile production or were they entirely separate?

Stone coffins! Do they appear in certain freestone rich regions or are they part of a wider Roman trend? Is there any indication these were the products of the building stone industry or could it have been organised separately?

How was quarrying organised? Private? Imperial? Civic? Military?

Rare villas without any CBM at all!

Features & techniques

Clarify what is being studied

Adoption of building stone

Holistic approach to building stone