Londinium, Architecture and the CraftsLethaby, W. R. (William Richard)
History
Londinium, Architecture and the Crafts
Lethaby, W. R. (William Richard)
England -- Antiquities, Roman; London (England) -- Antiquities, Roman; Romans -- England -- London
Some of the sculptured fragments found in the Camomile Street bastion,
while doubtless parts of sepulchral monuments, as Price thought, are of
too large a scale to have belonged to mausolea of the Igel type. Two of
the stones evidently came from angle pilasters of considerable scale. As
Price said: “The size and weight of the stones indicate that the edifice
was of proportions to bear comparison with the sepulchres in the
vicinity of Rome: such monuments were placed near the city gates.” One
of the fragments just mentioned has a nude boy or Cupid carved against a
background of foliage on one face, while the return of the same stone
contains similar ornament without the boy. Probably on the front face
there were several little figures one over the other. This treatment for
a pilaster is found on the monuments of Trèves. The boy on the stone at
the Guildhall carries an object which Price thought might be a trident,
but it is rather a torch; amorini and torches had a sepulchral
significance. These big stones must have formed part of the angle
pilasters of a large square tomb-house. They are more than 1¾ ft. wide,
and one is over 3 ft. high, and contains two units of the fine carved
pattern of very similar character to the carving on the Haydon Square
sarcophagus. I should doubt if it is much earlier, say, _c._ A.D. 300
(Fig. 70). The pattern is evidently a simplification of the scheme shown
in Fig. 61 from a tomb sculpture at Trèves, illustrated by Espèrandieu.
[Illustration:
FIG. 70.
]
At the Guildhall is a niche-head cut out of one stone into an arch form
(Fig. 71). It came from the Camomile Street bastion and very possibly
formed part of a monument—perhaps a built-up niche surrounded a larger
scale figure than the usual reliefs of the steles. Price associated this
niche-head with the stele now at the Guildhall, but that was rather all
in one stone (see my restoration in _Arch. Rev._, 1913). A man’s head of
larger size than that of the stele and separate from any background was
found at the same time as the niche fragments, and the figure to which
it belonged may have stood in the niche. Possibly, however, the stone
formed the head of a small doorway. Another monument at the Guildhall is
a crude and late sculpture of a lion seizing some other animal. Many
similar groups have been found in Britain and abroad. It would have had
some symbolical significance. “Mythological” figures, such as Hercules
and Atys, seem also to have been used for tombs.
[Illustration:
FIG. 71.
]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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