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Archaeology Visit

On Thursday 9th December 2021, Year 7 were treated to a talk about the people who lived in Priors Hall 2000 years ago.

On Thursday 9th December 2021, Year 7 were treated to a talk about the people who lived in Priors Hall 2000 years ago.

The talk was led by Paddy Lambert, project officer for Oxford Archaeology’s Priors Hall excavation.

The talk on the Weird and Wonderful Romans was funded by Urban & Civic who also helped make the original excavations possible.

Oxford Archaeology East’s excavation of a Romano-Celtic temple-mausoleum and evidence for late Roman industrial activity has been nominated for Rescue Project of the Year in the prestigious 2022 Current Archaeology Awards. This was because at Priors Hall archaeologists found:

  1. A previously unknown and nationally rare type of Romano-British temple-mausoleum.
  2. This building later underwent a dramatic transformation into a large tile and pottery manufactory, when a new villa was built.
  3. The level of preservation has given an unprecedented insight into the industrial processes and scale of natural resources required to build a Roman villa.
  4. The finds bring to life the lives of the workers who built the villa. An iron tool used by one of the Roman potters was found outside a kiln entrance and an inscribed tile bears part of the name of one of the tilers who worked on the site.

Students were enthralled by Paddy Lambert’s charismatic and entertaining tales of Roman life from Cardea, Roman goddess of door handles to the story of the Mastiff puppy who bounced over one of the tiles that was being made and left a footprint.

A whole world of hidden lives was revealed before foundations of the 21st century was laid over these forgotten peoples. Students could have listened for hours.