Skip to main content

The Temple or Room? The Interpretation of Frampton Roman Temple/Villa Site in the LIght of Recent Geophysical Survey Results.

Cheetham, P., Russell, M. and Stewart, D., 2018. The Temple or Room? The Interpretation of Frampton Roman Temple/Villa Site in the LIght of Recent Geophysical Survey Results. In: Recent Work in Archaeological Geophysics 2018, 4 December 2018, The Geological Society, Burlington House, London.

Full text available as:

[img]
Preview
PDF
Cheetham, Russell and Stewart - The Temple or Room - NSGG 2018.pdf - Accepted Version

443kB

Official URL: http://www.archprospection.org/sites/archprospecti...

Abstract

The Roman site of Frampton (Dorset) is something of an archaeological enigma. Discovered and first excavated in the 1790s (fig. 2), four rooms, all connected by corridors were found to contain high quality figurative Roman mosaics, one famously bearing the rare Christian Chi-Ro monogram and an even rarer inscription (fig. 1), These floors have been considered by some scholars to be part of a temple complex situated on a raised platform amid the water meadows of the river Frome. A scheduled ancient monument, the site is listed “Frampton Roman villa” (Historic England 2018), however, its position, right on the valley floor, made no apparent sense as a domestic structure, and the early plans suggested a series of isolated structures, convincing some archaeologists that it had a religious function. At the time of the excavations, the mosaics were considered to be some of the finest found in Britain, with King George III visiting on two occasions. The site was further investigated in 1903, but nothing was discovered to help understand the structure any better, and so the temple or villa question has remained unresolved.

Item Type:Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Group:Faculty of Science & Technology
ID Code:31587
Deposited By: Symplectic RT2
Deposited On:19 Dec 2018 12:35
Last Modified:14 Mar 2022 14:14

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

More statistics for this item...
Repository Staff Only -