RELICS OF OLD ROME.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 2, 2 December 1931, Page 11

RELICS OF OLD ROME.

DISCOVERIES AT COLCHESTER. There was a slither of sand near Colchester, England, the other day and the world nearly lost two valuable men, says an English journal. Mr J. P Bushe Fox and Mr Christopelir Hawkes, of the British Museum, were excavating the barracks where Roman soldiers wintered in 43 A.D. The excavators wished to photograph the different strata, and moved some wooden supports, whereupon the sand suddenly moved, and they were buried at a depth of 12ft'. They were dug out before they were suffocated, but Mr Bushe Fox had to go to hospital with an injured arm. These two men have found some profoundly interesting things on the site. Perhaps the most romantic is a Celtic catch-lift which opened the door of a native hut nearly 1900 years ago. There were three native huts just outside the great ditch which guarded the wooden barracks, and the catchlift opened one of these old British homes.

It was at Colchester that the conquering Claudius was hailed as Emperor. It was here that his army wintered. and here that Romans lived till they had built Colchester on a neighbouring hill. • Roman Colchester was a fine e place, with shops full of pretty wares and handsome houses with hot water laid on. The old site was just a camp, and it was deserted for centuries. Then in 1648 the Parliamentary army went to besiege tlie Cavaliers of Colchester, and they found that the best place for a camp was the Roman one. Thus it is that an iron cavalry helmet of the New Army model and a pikeman’s back-plate have been found at Colchester, besides Roman and early British coins, a clay lamp decorated with fighting gladiators, and all sorts of nicknacks belonging to the early days of Rome’s conquest.