Newsletter
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HADAS DIARY
Tuesday June 11th- ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING followed by members’ news of HADAS activities (8pm prompt in the drawing room, ground floor, of Avenue House, East End Road, Finchley N3)
Saturday June 15th OUTING to the Roman bathhouse Welwyn, Stoke Bruerne Alderton and Grafton Regis. With Micky Watkins
Friday July 12th to Tuesday July 16th Long weekend to Ireland, Galway. This is now full (43 members). If anyone would like to be put on the waiting list in case there are cancellations please ring Jackie Brookes on 020 8349 2253. Will members already on the list please let Jackie know if they are vegetarians or require any special diet.
Saturday July 20th OUTING to Sutton Hoc Orford. With Tessa Smith and Sheila Woodward (details and application form enclosed)
Saturday August 17th Outing. With June Porges and Stewart Wild. (details to follow)
Tuesday October 9th – Start of Lecture Season
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Sutton Hoo by Tessa Smith
Why not visit the British Museum to view the exhibition” When we visit Sutton Hoo in July we will be able to see some of the treasures in the new exhibition centre on loan from the British Museum. The rest of this collection has just been refurbished at the British Museum and is well worth a visit in preparation for the July outing. By a happy coincidence, in an adjacent gallery, the Roman tombstones which were the subject of our February lecture by Francis Grew, are also on show. By combining your own trip to the British Museum with the HADAS outing to Sutton Hoo, you could see the entire treasure from the most richly furnished burial chamber ever discovered on British soil.
Bronze Age Cup Discovered in Kent
An amateur treasure hunter found a beautifully embossed gold goblet dating from 1700 to 1500BC, reported to be of outstanding and international importance, one of the earliest treasures found in England and roughly contemporary with Stone Henge. The find has revealed the burial site of a Bronze Age chieftain. The site at Ringlemere Farm, Woodnesborough, near Sandwich, is now being excavated by English Heritage. The cup is currently at the British Museum An inquest will be held to decide the cup’s status under the Treasure Trove Act. (Evening Standard 4 April 2002)
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LAMAS 39th Annual Conference of London Archaeologists Peter Pickering
This year the HADAS stall reappeared at this well-attended conference, and had a particularly profitable time with book sales, launching its new annual journal on an unsuspecting public. The conference was, as ever, ably chaired our President, Harvey Sheldon, who was particularly appreciative of all the speakers finishing on time! The Ralph Merrifield prize was awarded by LAMAS to the Museum of London in recognition of its achievements with the London Archaeological Archive and Resource Centre, and the afternoon session of the conference was devoted to the Centre and its work, including a talk by Brian Connell on the mediaeval bones from Spitalfields market and one by Jacqui Pearce, the tutor of our Ted Sammes course, on the publishing of London’s Tudor and Stuart pottery. This session demonstrated the potential for original research and discoveries presented by the enormous quantity of material in the archive; no need to dig out there in the cold and wet! The morning session was taken up by five illustrated talks about recent excavations in the London area. Two were angled towards that fashionable subject, landscape archaeology: one was on the multi-period landscapes disclosed in an open-area excavation in Staines on a site for a new prison, and the other the Thames floodplain landscapes disclosed by excavations on the line of the A13. Excavations at Park Lane, Croydon were the subject of another talk; 43 early Saxon inhumations were found, including three infant burials; the only cremation burial was of a horse, parallels for which are known elsewhere, usually (though not here) associated with a human burial. Among the grave goods were four swords, nine spearheads/ferrules, eleven shield bosses, brooches, beads, buckles and domestic items such as knives, tweezers, bucket fittings, keys, and mineralised textiles preserved on metalwork. The other two talks described MoLAS excavations in the Gresham Street area of the City of London. One was that at Blossom’s Inn, 30 Gresham Street, City of London which was covered in a recent Time Team Special and included three spectacular Roman finds (a gilded left forearm of a bronze statue, part of a civic or public monument that had been hacked off, perhaps from a statue of the disgraced Emperor Nero; dumped wall plaster painted with an architectural scene with figures including a head, possibly of Bacchus; two sets of lifting mechanisms for raising water from wells) and one from a much later period — a thirteenth century ritual Jewish bath, or Mikveh, built of Greensand Ashlar stonework and pre-dating the expulsion of the Jews by Edward I in 1290. This was an extremely good conference; perhaps next year there will be something from the more northerly parts of Middlesex to talk about!
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British Archaeological Biennial Awards
Entries are invited from almost everyone involved in archaeology, from schoolchildren to bulldozer operators. The aim is to provide a showcase for the best of British archaeology. Nothing is excluded if it embraces the material remains of human past. Prizes so far have been awarded include for a book on the Neanderthals, a study of the archaeology of Shakespeare’s theatre, of WWII pillboxes, and for spotting a series of ancient timber bridges. Entries close on June 30, details from Richard Brewer of the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff (02920 573247) (The Times 6 May 2002)
Dissertation Prize for Best Thesis by an Extramural Student
A new prize has been launched by Current Archaeology and the Royal Archaeological Institute. This year’s winner is Martin Cook, of Birkbeck College, London, who wrote about Romano-British drinking glasses and their apparent temporary replacement by cheaper pottery and pewter vessels in the 3rd century AD. The glassmakers fought back with a range of cheaper and lower quality wares and recaptured some of their lost market. Some things don’t change. (The Times 6 May 2002)
Vandalism at Olympics site
A lake for a rowing and canoeing centre for the 2004 Olympics is being created on the plains between Marathon and the sea; where, in 490 BC, Militiades led the Athenians to victory against the Persians. The new centre will include coach parks, grandstands, restaurants and a four-storey tower at the finishing line. A mile away stands the 333ft high mound where, Athens buried and honoured its 192 dead. The decision to build such a huge new complex on such an historic site has led historians and archaeologists around the world to accuse the Greek Government of burying its history and to damage the country’s claim for the return of the Elgin marbles. (Daily Telegraph 27 April 2002) Lela, for Voluntary Scheme to Record Archaeological Objects Found by Public
The Portable Antiquities Scheme
The Portable Antiquities Schemehas received funding from the Lottery Fund (HLF). The Portable Antiquities Scheme is a voluntary scheme and is run by Resource for the recording of archaeological objects found by members of the public. It was established to promote the recording of chance archaeological discoveries and to broaden public awareness of the importance of such finds for understanding our past. Since 1997 the scheme’s Finds Liaison Officers have recorded many thousands of objects; many of which might otherwise have gone unrecorded.
In May 2000 Resource submitted a bid for a £4 million project to extend the Portable Antiquities Scheme to all parts of England and Wales. Now the bid has been successful the Heritage Lottery Fund will contribute £2,493,000 towards funding the scheme over a period of three years from April 2003. This is to be matched by £1,500,000 from a unique partnership of 63 national and local museums, archaeological bodies and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. There is a Portable Antiquities Steering Group which is chaired by Resource and comprises representatives from a range of relevant organisations, including the Association of Government Archaeological Officers, the British Museum, the Council of British Archaeology and English Heritage. Currently working in the scheme are 14 people: a Co-ordinator, an Outreach Officer and 12 Finds Liaison Officers, who between them cover about half of England and all of Wales. The intention now is to create a further 31 posts with a nation-wide remit. Besides 24 new Finds Liaison Officer posts, the scheme will also have provision for Education, ICT, Administration and Finds Advisor posts. Since the scheme was established over 100,000 objects have been recorded with its Finds Liaison Officers. Some of these objects have been of national and international importance, but all have contributed to our understanding of the past. Many discoveries have also helped identify new archaeological sites and assisted in building a picture of the archaeological landscape in areas covered by the scheme. The data recorded by the scheme is passed on to the Sites and Monuments Records, for academic and public benefit, and is also published on the scheme’s website http-//www.finds.org.uk. You can join the Resourcenews email list at http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/resourcenews.html
Etruscan ‘Pompeii’ Uncovered in Tuscany
The ruins of an unknown Etruscan city, dating back nearly 3,000 years, have been discovered in Tuscany, the largest find of its kind. The site has been named Accessa after the lake on whose shores it has been found. The 2,700 year old city, near Massa Marittima in southern Tuscany, was covered in woodland and had not been disturbed by subsequent settlers and could “hold the key” to Etruscan mysteries. Giovannangelo Camporeale, Professor of Etruscology, is in charge of the excavations. (Daily Telegraph 4 April 2002)
Villa of the Papyri
An international campaign has been launched to save the contents of the only library known to have survived intact from the ancient world. A villa on the Bay of Naples, near Herculaneum, which probably belonged to Lucius Calpurnius Pisa, father-in-law of Julius Caesar, only partly excavated, has so far yielded some 1,800 rolls of papyrus, but there may be many more Proper scientific study and decipherment did not begin until the 1970ties by an international team under the late Professor Marcello Gigante of the University of Naples. Hundreds of lost works of Greek philosophy and some Roman poets were read for the first time. Items so far recovered include a contemporary copy of Lucretius’s On the Nature of Things, which suggests that the Villa may yield contemporary copies of Virgil’s Aeneid, or copies of Horace, or even of Catullus. The author most commonly represented was Philodemus, an Epicurean philosopher attached to Piso’s household, who certainly taught Virgil and possibly Horace also. Fresh excavations in the 1990s revealed further lower storeys, but money ran out and the site is now waterlogged and choked with volcanic mud and ash. The campaigners include amongst others the professors of Greek from the universities of Bristol, Harvard, London and Oxford. (Daily Telegraph 26 March 2002)
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Post Boxes by Bill Firth
In the last two months some 90 boxes have been recorded thanks to Andrew Tucker, Steve Bunning and Eric Morgan of HADAS, and Derek Warden and Sylvia van Gilder of the Finchley Society. Derek has been particularly active in recording 55 boxes in the Finchley area and Eric has recorded 27 boxes in Hendon and the surrounding area In the March Newsletter I noted some of the more interesting boxes in the Borough but I forgot to mention boxes with no cypher_ There are a number of these, particularly in Finchley. The following is a selection:
Long Lane/Trinity Road N2
Ballards Lane/Etchingham Park Road N3
123 Nether Street, north of Alexandra Grove N12
Sunningsfield Road/Nursery Walk NW4
Golders Green Road/The Riding NW 11
There are earlier reports of boxes of particular interest of which it would be nice to have details: Boxes without cypher
Durham Road/Lincoln Road N2
Glenthorne Road/Holly Park Road N11
EviiiR boxes
Heddon Court Parade, East Barnet
Wagon Road, Hadley Wood
Somewhere on the Great North Road, East Finchley
Two in N14 (Sorry about the vagueness of the last two sites but that is all the information I have) Wall boxes
Barnet Road – facing Barnet Gate Lane (on a brick pillar)
Barnet Road – near Quinta Drive
East End Road – by the Convent of the Good Shepherd N2
There have been no recordings of boxes outside the London postal area, perhaps the people of Barnet do not write letters.
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RAF Museum, Hendon by Andy Simpson
A new multimillion pound project will increase the size of the Museum by a third with the opening of a new landmark hangar. The Heritage Lottery Fund have contributed £4.7 million to the project. The new building will house a new ‘Milestones of Flight’ exhibition, and will contain some of the most significant aircraft from the development of aviation with particular reference to the part played by the RAF_ The new building will be open in December 2003 to coincide with the international celebrations to mark the Centennial of Powered Flight
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OTHER SOCIETIES EVENTS by Eric Morgan
Monday 3rd June 10.30am Finchley Society. Walk to survey Dollis and Mutton Brooks. Eight sections to explore with two groups starting from each meeting point. Meet at either Totteridge Lane, N20; Fursby Avenue, N3; Waverley Grove, N3 where road goes over Dollis Brook; or at Falloden Way, NW11 at junction Addison Way/Oakwood Road. Ends at 12noon at Scout camping ground, Frith Lane at hilltop between Lovers Walk, Railway Bridge. Refreshments till 2pm. Bring picnic.This is part of Environment Week which runs lst-9th June. HADAS is currently involved with river walking along the Dollis Brook and tributaries.
Monday 3rd June 11 am-4.30pm Kingsbury and Welsh Harp open day. Range of venues and activities. Meet at Welsh Harp open space or at St. Andrew’s Church, Church Lane, NW9 (Wembley Historical Society will have a stand there).
Wednesday 12th June 8pm Barnet and District Local History Society. Wyburn Room, Wesley Hall. Stapylton Road, Barnet, City gardens. Talk by Sandra Lea
Wednesday 12th June 8pm Hornsey Historical Society. Union Church Hall, corner Ferme Park Road, Weston Park, N8. Parish boundaries of Hornsey. Malcolm Stokes (of HADAS)
Thursday 13th June 7.30pm Southgate Civic Trust, Walker’s Hall, The Green, Southgate N14. The Walkers of Southgate. Talk by Ruby Galili
Sunday 16th June 2pm Friern Barnet and District Local History Society. Meet forecourt Friern Barnet Town Hall, corner Friern Barnet Lane/Woodhouse Road, N11. Circular tour of Colney Hatch of 1-2 hours. Visiting St. John’s Church_ Led by Dr. Oliver Natelsen. £1.00 per adult
Wednesday 19th June 7.30pm Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery Dissenters Chapel, Kensal Green Cemetery, Ladbroke Grove, W10.. Funerals and funeral directing in London: a look at the last 100 years. Brian Parsons. £3.00
Thursday 20th June 7.30pm Camden History Society. Offices of Alan Baxter Associates. Cowcross St. EC1. St. Pancras Station and Hotel. Robert Thorne
Friday 21st June 7pm City of London Archaeological Society. St. Olave’s Hall, Mark Lane, EC3. Prehistoric landscapes at Heathrow. Ken Welsh
Friday 21st June 7.30pm Wembley History Society. St. Andrew’s Church Hall, Church Lane, Kingsbury NW9. Kenton and Northwick Park. Len Snow
Sunday 23rd June 12noon – 6pm East Finchley Festival. Cherry Tree Wood, off High Road, East Finchley, N12. (HADAS hope to have a display stand there)
Thursday 27th June 8pm The Finchley Society. Drawing Room, Avenue House, East End Road, N3 AGM followed by panel and questions
Saturday 29th June – Sunday 3Ord June 12 noon – 7pm East Barnet festival. Oak Hill Park, Church Hill Road, East Barnet. (HADAS hope to have a display stand there also)
Friday 5th July 6pm for 6,30pm British Museum. Discover Avebury. Talks by Aubrey Burl and Josh Pollard. Compered by Julian Cope. Tickets £ 10.00 (no concessions ?) Phone 020 7323 8566/8644 to reserve ticket, then send cheque or pay at door. (Discover Avebury tickets, British Museum Friends, British Museum, Great Russell St., London, WC 113 3DG). David Dinnage of the Biitish Museum is once again co-ordinating, email us if you have problems, and we will forward. [from web site]
Details of LAARC Open Days London Museum
Free events at Mortimer Wheeler House, 46 Eagle Wharf Rd, London, N1 7ED. Nearest Tube is Old St on the Northern Line, map available by calling 020756693 IT Opening hours: 10.30-3.30
Saturday June 1st Insiders Tours at 10.30, 11.45 and 2pm (please book via the Museum of London Booking Office (02078145777). ‘Treasures of the LAARC’ object display and handling session – drop-in 10.30am -3.30pm Saturday July 6th Insiders Tours at 10.30, 11.45 and 2pm (please book via the Museum of London Booking Office (02078145777).
‘Waterfront and Riverbank’ object display and handling session – drop-in 10.30am -3.30pm Saturday July 20th – Sunday July 21st National Archaeology Weekend A variety of activities including finds washing and ‘The Dig, more details in the Museum of London’s National Archaeology Weekend leaflet.
Saturday August 3rd Insiders Tours at 10.30am, 11.45am and 2pm (please book via the Museum of London Booking Office (02078145777).
‘Working Romans’ object display and handling session – drop-in 10.30am-3.30pm Saturday September 11th Insiders Tours at 10.30am, I 1.45am and 2pm (please book via the Museum of London Booking Office (02078145777).
`The Great Fire of London’ object display and handling session – drop-in 10.30am-3.30pm
