Volume 79, 1999

        Papers:

1. ‘Unique, traditional and charming’: the Shapwick Project, Somerset by Michael Aston, FSA and Christopher Gerrard, FSA
   
   
2. Ancient Copper Alloy Figurines from Daghestan by Robert Chenciner
   
   
3. Excavations at the Roman Temple in Lydney Park, Gloucestershire in 1980 and 1981 by J P Casey, FSA and B Hoffman
   
   
4. The Transition to Late Antiquity on the Lower Danube: an interim report (1996-8) by Andrew Poulter, FSA
   
   
5. The ‘Rufus Tomb’in Winchester Cathedral by John Crook, FSA
   
   
6. The Institutional Façade: architectural recording at the Old Schools, University of Cambridge by Christopher Evans and Joshua Pollard
   
   
7. A London Pewterer’s Workshop in 1551 by Ronald F Homer, FSA
   
   
8. Richard III and the Knave of Cards: an illuminator’s model in manuscript and print, 1440s to 1990s by Anne Sutton, FSA and Livia Visser-Fuchs, FSA
   
   
9. South Italy, England and Elysium in the Eighteenth Century by Alastair Small, FSA and Carola Small
   
   

10. A Historiography of the Irish Crannog: the discovery of Lagore as prologue to Wood-Martin’s Lake Dwellings of Ireland of 1886 by C Stephen Briggs, FSA

        Shorter contributions:

• A Decorated Iron Age Copper Alloy Knife from Hertfordshire by Ruth Megaw, FSA, Vincent Megaw, FSA and Rosalind Niblett, FSA

• A Jeweller’s Die from Alchester, Oxfordshire by Martin Henig, FSA

• Two Roman Gems in the Society’s Collection by Martin Henig, FSA

• A Tudor Parcel-Gilt Livery Badge from Chelsham, Surrey by D Gaimster, FSA and J A Goodall, FSA

• Tokens Attributable to Sark by Robert H Thompson, FSA

• A William IV Chalice by Brian Taylor, FSA

1. The Shapwick Project, Somerset

The project began in 1989 as a ten-year, multidisciplinary landscape investigation focused upon the evolution of early and late medieval settlement patterns. This interim paper reviews the work carried out to 1996 and summarizes the results of archaeological fieldwork, standing building recording and documentary study. It is argued that the site of the present village and the medieval field system were planned in the late Saxon period and replaced a scatter of dispersed farmsteads, many of which show continuity from the prehistoric and Roman periods. The role of the medieval and post-medieval landscape is emphasized in reflecting and reinforcing social structure.

2. Ancient Copper Alloy Figurines from Daghestan

Nothing appears to have been written in English about a group of powerfully-sculpted lost-wax copper alloy, standing, naked figurines, 30-60mm tall, mainly from the mountainous regions of west Daghestan and south-east Chechnya in the Caucasus. More than a hundred of these phallic (male), or otherwise sexually explicit (female and hermaphrodite) figurines have been found at different places at different dates since 1867 up to the present day. Most writers have suggested datings from the first millennium BC and indeed dating between 500 BC and AD 500 has been recently confirmed by the first technical and chemical analysis of a sample of these figurines by Dr Peter Northover. The thirteen figurines which he analysed are catalogued here. However, a Daghestani archaeologist Dr M S Gadjiev has recently proposed that the period of their manufacture is from the sixth to ninth centuries AD, since similar figurines have been found with a small spoon, datable to that period. The author's suggested interpretations of the 'adoration' and 'cup-bearer' types of figurine, which occur most frequently, do not affect the debate on their dating.

3. Excavations at the Roman Temple in Lydney Park, Gloucestershire in 1980 and 1981

Re-examination of the published evidence from the excavation of the Temple of Nodens at Lydney, Gloucestershire, by R E M Wheeler, FSA suggested a more complicated structural sequence than that postulated by the excavator whilst detailed study of the numismatic evidence threw doubt on the traditional chronology. In the light of new phasing hypothesised from the theoretical work based on re-examination of the published data, selective re-excavation of coin dated features was undertaken. The results, confirming the theoretical work, suggest that the religious buildings had their inception in the second half of the third rather than in the middle of the fourth century, that there was a refurbishment in the fourth century but that there was serious deterioration of the structures after the middle of the century. Features attributed to the post-Roman period are seen to fall within a Roman chronology.

4. The Transition to Late Antiquity on the Lower danube: an interim report (1996-8)

. A total of 268 sites within a region of c 2,000 square kilometres in northern Bulgaria, extending north from the Stara Planina (Haemus) to the Danube, offers a unique opportunity to study the character and extent of economic and social change which separates the Roman Empire from Late Antiquity. The method involves excavations within the Roman city of Nicopolis, along the course of a remarkable Roman aqueduct, and at the ‘type site’ of Gradishte, a Late Roman and early Byzantine fort where one of the primary goals is to reconstruct its palaeoenvironmental history. This is accompanied by site-specific field-survey, using geophysics and intensive surface collection, to date and identify different categories of nucleated settlements. Running concurrently, the collection and dating of pottery samples from other sites should help to establish whether there was continuity or dislocation of settlement on the lower Danube in the period of transition between the second and the sixth centuries AD.

5. The ‘Rufus Tomb’ in Winchester Cathedral

One of Winchester Cathedral's most celebrated monuments, the so-called 'Tomb of William Rufus', has been officially re-attributed. It is now displayed to visitors as that of Bishop Henry of Blois (1129-1171). The purpose of this paper is to present and discuss the evidence which has led to the renaming of the monument. Information obtained when the tomb was last opened in 1868 is newly evaluated, leading to conclusions quite different from those of the nineteenth-century investigators, whose analysis of the evidence was coloured by their conviction that they had discovered the remains of the Red King. It is further suggested that William Rufus's bones are indeed located in the mortuary chests in Winchester Cathedral presbytery, as inscriptions on those chests maintain.

6. The Institutional Façade: architectural recording at the Old Schools, University of Cambridge

The results of architectural recording within the North Range of the University's Old Schools are described. Argued to have stood independently as a hall in the later fourteenth century, the progressive development of the Schools' quadrangle, and extensive alterations to it - culminating in Wright's neo-classical façade of 1754-58 - reflects upon the historical development of academic architecture. The prestigious display of the complex in the mid-eighteenth century, facilitated through the mass levelling of domestic properties, equally tells of the institutional 'realization' of the University.

7. A London Pewterer's Workshop in 1551

A three-leaf fragment of an unidentified London pewterer's business records, covering some three months of the year 1551, has been found among the archives of the Worshipful Company of Pewterers and is transcribed in this article together with a discussion of its contents. It provides an inventory of the pewterer's stock, describes the alloying and casting of over a ton of tin to produce a wide range of pewter flatware, and itemizes the sales and loans of pewterware to named customers. these include other pewterers and Alderman Richard Lambert. The manuscript provides a unique insight into a sixteenth century pewterer's workshop practices. speculation into the identity of the pewterer has proved inconclusive.

8. Richard III and the Knave of Cards: an illuminator’s model in manuscript and print, 1440s to 1990s

For over two hundred years certain historians and art historians have been asserting that a portrait of Richard III can be found in the presentation miniature of one of Edward IV’s manuscripts. This ‘portrait’ was the starting point of this investigation. The history of this myth has been traced, and that of the picture itself, its component parts and the book in which it appears, and it was the second phase of this research which revealed another complex trail of copies and imitations by illuminators and other artists.

9. South Italy, England and Elysium in the Eighteenth Century

In a complex of interconnecting tunnels at Avigliano in South Italy there are two inscriptions at two entrances in eighteenth century lettering referring, one to Inferno, the other to Elysium. The measurements of the spatial components of the tunnels refer to Pythagorean numerology. The complex is on land formerly belonging to the local Corbo family and was probably constructed about 1762 by Carlo Corbo for rituals of the mystical, somewhat unorthodox Neapolitan freemasonry of the time. They can be compared to the tunnels at West Wycombe, England where Sir Francis Dashwood who, like many contemporaries, was acquainted with Italian freemasonry, apparently parodied such masonic ideas. The Avigliano tunnels were still in use in 1838. By then the Corbo were embroiled in revolutionary politics perceived as having masonic links.

10. A Historiography of the Irish Crannog: the discovery of Lagore as prologue to Wood-Martin’s Lake Dwellings of Ireland of 1886

The nineteenth century development of Irish crannog studies, attitudes to archaeological research and traits in public and private artefact collecting are examined through the parts played by several leading antiquaries and institutions in the 1839 discovery and later exploitation of Lagore, near Dunshaughlin, Co Meath. Connections between Irish and Swiss antiquaries are noted, and contemporary attitudes to their respective ‘lake dwelling’ discoveries contrasted.