Costume -- Great Britain -- History; Great Britain -- History; Great Britain -- History -- Pictorial works
“Keys and steelyards, roofing tiles and hairpins, glass bottles and
spoons, statues and bells, represent wants and comforts strange to
the ‘savage and shivering Britons,’ dressed in skins, whom earlier
writers knew.” The manufacture of glass, chiefly beads, was carried on
at Glastonbury in Roman times, but most of the glass found is Roman
in character. The large green jars which were used for containing the
ashes of the dead were generally made here, but the best specimens came
probably from Gaul, where the manufacture of glass was carried on to a
considerable extent.
[Illustration: PLATE 6.
(Fig. 1): A square bottle of green glass, found in a grave
with cinerary urns. (Fig. 2): An unguentarium, or bottle for
unguents, perfumes and other toilet requisites, of Roman
glass. (Fig. 3): A Roman lamp of earthen-ware. The wick was
inserted in the spout, and the central hole was for the
purpose of feeding the lamp. (Fig. 4): Another Roman lamp,
viewed from above. (Fig. 5): A Roman pole-axe, with expanded
blade, oval shaft-hole, and pointed projection behind, 9 in.
long. (Figs. 6 and 7): Two forms of Roman keys of bronze.
(Fig. 8): A Roman shoe or buskin, with ten large holes stamped
out on each side. (Fig. 9): An axe with crescent-shaped blade
and tang for handle. (Fig. 10): A Roman spoon of copper (5 in.
long). (Fig. 11): A Roman steelyard of bronze, with hooks and
rings. (Fig. 12): A sacrificial knife (7¼ in. long). (Fig.
13): A Roman iron knife with ornamented bone handle.]
ROMAN ARCHITECTURE IN BRITAIN.
Roman architecture in Britain, judging from the remains of buildings,
was generally of an inferior description, for Britain was a remote and
half-civilised province, and little attention appears to have been paid
to make the buildings very ornate.
There are two principal varieties of masonry employed in their
construction.
The first, which is very characteristic, consists of layers of
irregularly shaped stones and flat tiles embedded in mortar, generally
arranged in alternate layers of tiles and stones in mortar, forming a
kind of concrete (Pl. 7, Fig. 3). The Mint wall at Lincoln, the Jewry
wall at Leicester, and the walls at Richborough and Colchester are
built in this manner.
The other variety consists of walls formed of regular courses, with
wide joints of outer facings of square stones or ashlars, the interior
spaces being filled with a rubble embedded in mortar. The blocks, which
were of hewn sandstone, were about 8 in. by 10 in. on the face, and as
much as 22 in. long in the bed. The whole rests on a course of larger
foundation stones (Pl. 7, Figs. 1 and 2).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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