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| Corieltauvi bronze core of an Esup Rasv gold stater Van Arsdell 920-3, CCI 08.9281, Bromwich Lane Tennis Club, Worcester Photo: Dean Crawford, post-production processing: John Hooker (click to enlarge) |
Today, I am featuring a bronze core of a Corieltauvi stater of the Esup Rasu type found by Dean when contracted to do some metal detecting for an archaeological excavation at the Bromwich Lane Tennis Club in Worcester. Here is the excavation report for the site. This coin, and the next illustrated here came from a fill (#1260) of a ditch consisting of yellowish brown sandy silt. The photograph is taken from two separate shots Dean took when he discovered it. He carried out the detecting in the trench after the archaeologists had finished with it. Of course, the contents of any fill are only tenuously connected with the site, but would most likely come from a site not too far away.
When we find an object far from where would expect to find it, we call it an outlier. Most often, such things are seen as being not helpful in drawing up distribution patterns, but when examined more closely can often provide unexpected information. I wrote about such a group of finds of Dobunni origin from Lambay Island near Dublin. Before my examination, they were believed to be Brigantes and although the original interpretation was badly flawed, as it was based only on one of the finds (and even then with little evidence) it had long been assumed to have been correct.
Micronarratives, and their related related "language games" are postmodern terms created by Jean-François Lyotard:
"In Lyotard's works, the term 'language games', sometimes also called 'phrase regimens', denotes the multiplicity of communities of meaning, the innumerable and incommensurable separate systems in which meanings are produced and rules for their circulation are created."For the excavating archaeologists, the find is but a detail of the overall excavation of the site, and while recorded, there is attempt to interpret; for the numismatist, it provides another example for die studies; for me, it speaks of Dobunnic communication along the Jurassic Way to eastern England: the territories of the Iceni and Coriletauvi; for Dean, it was a great discovery that he not only handed over to the excavators, but also sent the photographs and information to Philip de Jersey at the CCI at Oxford where it was given its CCI number. Strangely, it does not appear at all in the Portable Antiquity Scheme's listing for the type (although both earlier and later recorded examples do).
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| British imitative Copper As of the Minerva type mostly copied from a Claudius type, but here the obverse head appears to have been taken from a coin of Tiberius (photo credits: as above) |
Archaeobloggers still operating under the modernist paradigms of the early seventies and unwilling to face new realities can make little of all of this. They rant about "unethical behaviour", tar everyone with the same brush and imagine some unified "public" all with the same mind. The Lyotard quote continues:
"This becomes more crucial in Au juste: Conversations (Just Gaming) (1979) and Le Différend (The Differend) (1983), which develop a postmodern theory of justice. It might appear that the atomisation of human beings implied by the notion of the micronarrative and the language game suggests a collapse of ethics. It has often been thought that universality is a condition for something to be a properly ethical statement: 'thou shalt not steal' is an ethical statement in a way that 'thou shalt not steal from Margaret' is not. The latter is too particular to be an ethical statement (what's so special about Margaret?); it is only ethical if it rests on a universal statement ('thou shalt not steal from anyone'). But universals are impermissible in a world that has lost faith in metanarratives, and so it would seem that ethics is impossible. Justice and injustice can only be terms within language games, and the universality of ethics is out of the window. Lyotard argues that notions of justice and injustice do in fact remain in postmodernism. The new definition of injustice is indeed to use the language rules from one 'phrase regimen' and apply them to another. Ethical behaviour is about remaining alert precisely to the threat of this injustice, of paying attention to things in their particularity and not enclosing them within abstract conceptuality. One must bear witness to the 'differend'."More in this series tomorrow.
John's Coydog Community page
Hello John:
ReplyDeleteWhat stands out like a black eye at a church supper is the fact that it's Dean who is doing the business, yet, at least one archaeo-blogger while professing an interest in history and the common record, etcetera, ad nauseum, cannot bring himself to welcome new data to that record. Either he is a complete numpty (which the evidence strongly suggests), or, is not the professional/educated amatuer he would have the world believe.
Anyone who does not welcome successfully retrieved and recorded data, is guilty of heritage vandalism. It is they, not detectorists or collectors who detract from the common record. Two of these vandals to my knowledge are wholly undistinguished having done little, if anything, over the years for the heritage record themselves save whining and moaning about the brilliant efforts of detectorists.
Dean is to be thoroughly congratulated and is an example to others.
Best wishes
John Howland
Hi John,
ReplyDeleteI agree, and it's not like there is nothing much to do. I put all manner of ideas out there because I know that when I get enough ideas for a couple of year's work, but within a week or two, Then a lot of other people are going to have to do it.
Dean has added more to our knowledge of the past than most of the best archaeologists. The "anti" archaeobloggers seem incapable of doing anything constructive at all.
Best,
John
Please clarify your comment that 'the contents of any fill are only tenuously connected with the site, but would most likely come from a site not too far away'. The contents of the fill are on that site and thus by definition they are closely connected with it.
ReplyDeletePlease also clarify the circumstances of the discovery of this coin. According to the report that you cite, seven coins and a brooch 'were found in close proximity in the top of the ditch and may therefore have formed a small hoard' (p. 12). Did Dean find all of these, and were they as stated all in the top of the ditch?
The connection is only happenstance. It was significant that the ditch had been filled at some point, but no human agency was responsible for the contents in that fill. The fill was silt. This is material that (almost certainly in this case) comes from the outer side of a bend in a river and is deposited at times when the water level is high. Most silt gets deposited in flood conditions on the inner side of river bends and was originally eroded from banks on the outer side of a bend upstream, but what is brought downstream with it cannot usually be tracked back to its origins unless there is some unusual circumstances such as if a type of object can only come from a singular location. If that were the case, you would think it would be mentioned in the publication.
DeleteDean found only the two coins illustrated after the excavators had finished with their trench. The archaeological report lacks specificity in that regard.
Excavators frequently identify things as a hoard which are not at all. Finding a Celtic stater core with no real wear (only the typical weak striking at one point on both sides) which dates circa 1-5 AD with an imitation of a imitation Claudian copper as which would have been minted some time after Claudius, but which also has at least a hundred years of wear apart from any flood damage would hardly be justification of a hoard, but when both are from a fill composed of silt, then whoever wrote that was just not thinking at all and would likely be quite embarrassed if it was brought to their attention (not just for the strange "hoard" contents, but for not understanding the nature of silt!
Best,
John
So are you assuming that the coins washed in with the silt?
ReplyDeleteNot much of an assumption: the primary depositions of the two coins span about three hundred years. What I call primary hoards usually show a gradual decrease in wear over the chronology. In this case the opposite is happening. I call hoards "secondary" if they have been accumulated from other discrete hoards or collections of material. Examples of such are the Jersey hoards of Armorican (and some Roman) coins; the Iceni coin hoards, and the Fishpool hoard of English Medieval coins.
DeleteThat's surely a huge assumption, when the seven coins and a brooch are described as being 'in close proximity'. And I don't see how you can argue for 'primary deposition' of the two coins spanning three hundred years. The Celtic coin is perhaps very early first century AD and the Roman imitations are mid-first century; the excavators state that the 'date of deposition of the AD 50s is likely'.
ReplyDelete"close proximity" is not defined. As Dean's find was separate and post excavation, the inaccuracy of the publication is apparent. As for the dating, it is almost always that archaeologists neglect to factor in wear patterns. That is why they need numismatists with experience. It could be as narrow as a two hundred year span, but I think closer to to three.
DeleteSorry, but this just won't do. How could Dean's find be post-excavation, when all the coins are said to have been in the top of the ditch fill? There is nothing in the archaeological report to suggest that the fill was not entirely archaeologically excavated. As for the dating, I believe a Roman coin specialist wrote the report - is that not a numismatist with experience? And you have still not explained how this group of coins were washed in *as a group*.
ReplyDeleteThe mark of a good researcher is not in having the answers, but knowing where to find them. Thus, I suggest you bring these questions to those to whom they refer.
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