Fri, Oct 29, 2021 page6

• Amphitheater paints picture of Roman town

  • The Guardian
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  A big night out for the people of the Roman settlement at Richborough on the Kent coast in England about 2,000 years ago might have involved gladiatorial contests, hunting for wild beasts or the occasional execution of a criminal.

  Taking place in a vast amphitheater, seating up to 5,000 people, on the western edge of the settlement, such an event was a “special occasion, drawing people from Richborough town and its surrounds”, said Paul Pattison, a senior properties historian at English Heritage. “These were public spectacles, the equivalent of going to a big blockbuster film, in our terms.”

  Centuries later, a new window into those times has emerged during an archeological excavation at the site over the past few weeks.

  Among the discoveries is a skeleton of a cat, nicknamed Maxipus by the excavation team, which was buried in an area of domestic settlement and is believed to have been a pet.

  “Normally you would expect it to have been dismembered by predators, but it’s almost complete, so it looks like it was deliberately placed where it wasn’t disturbed,” Pattison said.

  People were likely to have had pet animals, but “they weren’t quite as soppy as we are about them,” he said. “Whether they had them in the house is probably debatable.”

  Other finds include a small “carcer,” or cell with a doorway, that was probably used to hold wild animals and people before being released into the arena.

  The excavation began in the middle of last month and is due to finish next month.

  “We knew the amphitheater was there because of a partial excavation in 1849,” Pattison said. “We had a clue, but only a clue — so we wanted to find out more.”

  The remains of the amphitheater are on a low but prominent hill with an oval depression, close to one of the most important Roman historical sites in England. The settlement dates from the Roman invasion in 43 to the end of Roman rule in about 410.

  Part of Emperor Claudius’ 40,000-strong invasion force came ashore at Richborough, known as Rutupiae to the Romans, which became the main entry point from Europe.

  A busy town grew up around the port.

  In the past few weeks, excavators have discovered details of how the amphitheater was constructed. The exterior wall was up to 6m thick and made of stacked turf, while the interior wall around the arena was made of locally quarried chalk blocks.

  “Really significantly, we’ve discovered that they rendered the inside of the wall that was facing into the arena, and then plastered it, and there are traces of paint on the arena wall,” Pattison said. “We are beginning to think there was a series of painted rectangular panels, because there are vertical and horizontal lines in red, yellow, black and blue. They probably originally contained painted scenes, perhaps figurative scenes of what happens in amphitheaters. We don’t have that detail yet, but we have the paint and that’s a really good start. Given that we’ve only excavated a tiny fragment of the wall, it bodes well for better-preserved painted scenes elsewhere around the circuit. So we’re pretty excited.”

  None of the other 15 or 16 amphitheaters discovered in Britain had this treatment, Pattison said.

  “This is a very rare find in Britain,” he said. “There may be about 19 or 20 in the whole Roman empire.”
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