Abstract
EXCAVATION of Roman remains at Leicester now in progress has resolved an archaeological doubt of long standing. While instructed opinion has hesitated between identifying the well-known Jewry wall, one of the highest surviving Roman walls in Britain, popularly regarded as a temple of Janas, as a Roman bath building, a basilica or even a town gate, it has now been shown, according to a report in The Times of July 4, to be part one of the external walls of the basilica in the forum of Roman Leicester, dating probably from about A.D. 100. A large part of the adjacent site, until recently occupied by a factory, is being cleared by the Corporation for the erection of public baths, and advantage has been taken of the opportunity to carry out these excavations. The base of the Jewry wall has been uncovered to some ten feet below the present surface, giving a total height of existing masonry of more than thirty-five feet. Two arched openings, previously thought to be doorways, are now revealed as windows. Beneath the Jewry wall, timber and masonry are associated with pottery and coins going back to the earliest Roman occupation of Britain. To the west of the wall is emerging a courtyard about 175 ft. wide, flanked by ranges of rooms or shops opening on to the courtyard by porticoes. This is the forum, of which the basilica forms part. Fronting the forum and abutting centrally on the basilica are the massive foundations of an architectural feature, probably once surmounted by a pediment, which dominated the forum and faced the main entrance. Outside the northern wall of the forum a stretch of cobbled roadway, deeply scored by wheels, has been uncovered. Massive walls and fragments of columns found on the factory site some years ago may now be identified as fragments of the forum and its colonnades. The road on the southern side of the forum is largely covered by St. Nicholas Street, near which is preserved one of the mosaic pavements for which Roman Leicester is famous. The excavations are being carried out by Miss Kathleen Kenyon under a committee, of which the Duke of Rutland is president, in co-operation with the Corporation of Leicester.
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Roman Leicester. Nature 138, 69 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/138069a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/138069a0