ROMAN RUINS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 2, 2 December 1931, Page 4

ROMAN RUINS

DISCOVERY ON GOVERNORGENERAL’S ESTATE. WELLINGTON, Dec. 2. An address on recent archaeological discoveries on his estate at Lydney, in the ancient hundred of Bledisloe, Gloucestershire, was given to members of the New Zealand Numismatic Society by His Excellency the Governor-Gene-ral, Lord Bledisloe, last evening. The address was accompanied by a number of lantern slides, showing the foundations of Roman edifices which havo been brought to light, views in the beautiful park in which the excavations have been made, carvings, ornaments, etc. ])lr D. C. Bates presided over an attendance of about 40, members.

His Excellency congratulated the president and members on the formation of the first Numismatic Society in New Zealand, and said that the science of numismatics was closely related to the subject matter of his address. Ho had in his possession a large number of Roman coins—about 12,000 in all—comprising some of those discovered on a plateau in his deer park at Lydney, which had been occupied by Romans during the whole period of the Rofman occupation of Britain. From the age of seven up to adolescence he had gathered a considerable number of coins uncovered by moles after wet weather.

Reference was made by His Excellency to the erection about A.D. 364 of a large temple dedicated to a Romanised Celtic deity. The date was put at that period by the present excavators because they found beneath the temple’s flagged floors in ground not previously disturbed many coins of as late, but no later, a date. A high earthwork bounding the plateau on its northeast and south-east sides was outside that period, the lower one-third being of prehistoric construction and the upper two-thirds being added in post-Ro-man times. That rampart had never before been excavated and gave promise of many further interesting finds. Most of the coins were said to' have been found in the temple and were deemed to bo offerings to the god. The deity, ydiether originally a sungod, a river-god, or possibly a god of the gohlins, was evidently credited with powers of healing, and tlm quondam mansion became a “hospitium” or lodging house for hundreds of pilgrims who resorted to Camp Hill (as to the modern Lourdes) to bo healed of their ailments or to give thanks for their recovory therefrom, or perhaps in the case of many to worship a deity of immense temporary popularity. About the same time were constructed to the north-west and close to the temple what may have been shops or may have been dream or meditation chambers for the more inspired devotees. The unique plan of the temple, with its wide ambulatory, its sod ilia (or benches) and its six side chapels, has suggested that it may havo been the tranquil resort of one or more mystery cults of the Mithraic type,

seeking there a sanctuary or rendezvous in face of the onward march of Christianity and inviting increased popularity by adopting, in part at least, the less exclusive and more communal user of Christian places of worship. His Excellency showed pictures of prehistoric iron mines which had been worked by the Romans, and gave interesting explanations of carvings, mosaic floors, forms of ornamentation, etc., which had been unearthed. A hearty vote of thanks was accorded His Excellency. <