The Antique Antique?
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 21/04/2019

Relationships with the past are documented by contemporary writers during the Roman period but personal attachment to historic objects may also be inferred stylistically and through examples of depositional context. This brief paper uses items within the collections of the National Roman Legion Museum, Caerleon, or reported there as a reporting site for the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS Cymru), in order to explore possible Roman (and post-Roman) attitudes to the historic. Historicity or utility? - Case studies include the Caerleon jacinth marine goddess or Nereid, possibly 2nd-3rd centuries BC; the Caerleon genius togatus figurine, deposited post- AD 317, a debased Julio-Claudian style still prevails in the late-3rd century or later; the Caerleon ‘Celtic Horse’ stud, a 4th century deposition of a similarly dated artefact but stylistically very similar to 1st century coinage – its report suggested implied survival of heirlooms; reworked antefixa from the Caerleon fortress baths and extramural area; and a seemingly intentionally deposited ‘dedicatory’ Republican denarius from the Praetorium. 

Mark Lewis (National Roman Legion Museum, Caerleon)