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