Excavations Reveal Ancient Roman City

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 7201, 26 April 1930, Page 14

Excavations Reveal Ancient Roman City

TWO THOUSAND YEARS OLD One of the most important searches for Roman remains ever made in Great Britain is to bo carried out at St. Albans. It has been docidcd to excavate the ancient city of Vorulam, which outrivalled London under Roman rule. Life as it was lived in England 2000 years ago is likely to bo revealed. Tho decision was taken by tho St. Albans City Council on a report made by Dr. R. E. Mortimer Wheeler, keeper of tho London Museum.

Verulam’s site had recently been acquired from Lord Vcrulam, and, in the words of several speakers, was one of the most wonderful possessions that had ever come their way. A committee is to bo formed to proceed with the unearthing of the treasures as soon as nossible.

Dr. Wheeler says that Vcrulam was one of the great tribal capitals of prehistoric Britain. It was already a capital city before Julius Caesar reached those shores, and was thus not merely a city, but a city of the first rank a century or more before London, as it seoins, was even founded. Tho Roman city which, in tho first century A.D., grew up on or closo to the site of the prehistoric capital, was, within 10 or 15 years of the arrival of the Romans, raised to the highest possible civic rank. In the whole of Roman Britain, Vcrulam appears to have been the only “municipium’’ or municipality’’ in the anciont technical sense of the term. London itself seems never to hr.vo achieved any approximate rank.

In order to attain this rank, Vcrulam must have conformed with many of tho highest standards of Roman provincial life and, if for this reason alone, its excavation must throw a new light upon the civilisation of Britain in the earliest years of our history. The excavation of Vcrulam, said Dr. Wheeler, would incidentally provide much new material for tho elucidation of tho early history of London, which must have grown up in tho Roman period in a somewhat similar environment, and must to some extent have been called upon to face the same problems. Dr. Wheeler adds: “Here, therefore, and nowhere else in Britain, it is possible by ; correlating the results of archaeological excavation with authoritative documcntsary record, to find out for the first timo something of tho life and civilisation of south-eastern Britain in that dim but immensely important period when modern England was in the making.’’ In a report by the Royal Commission on Historic Monuments, the statement is made that the whole area within tho wails of tho city is full of buildings, many of them apparently dwelling houses of different sizes.

The report declares: “It is hardly possible to put a spade into tho ground below plough level without touching serious archaeological interests.’’ Such parts of Vorulam as havo already been exposed show that here is the site of the only Roman theatre known in the whole country. About 10,000 acres are to bo excavated.