Abstract
EXCAVATION, resumed on the Romano-British site at Colchester early in July, continued to produce evidence, mainly in the form of pottory, of the importance of the pre-Roman city as a contre of foreign trade and native British industry. Early in August, however, investigation was given a fresh impetus by tho discovery of vestiges of a reinarkablo character of what at first sight was thought to be a building of considerable size, assigned tentatively to tho last decade of the first century A.D,, on the evidence of a coin found on the floor of what appeared to be a kitchen. Further excavation showed that this identification of the character of the structure was premature. The new discovery can now be seen to bo of far greater importance, and indeed, in certain respects it seems unique. The wall, so far as at present uncovered, a distance of some 230 ft., according to a report in The Times of August 10, runs cast and west almost in a straight line. Tho foundations, which remain in situ to a height of several inches, vary in breadth from 2 ft. 6 in. to 3 ft. At regular intervals of 17 ft. on both faces of the wall are small buttresses, 2 ft. square in plan. The method of construction is interesting. It points to a severe economy on tho part of the builders, no doubt owing to the scarcity of suitable stone in East Anglia. The core of the wall is composed of a coarse gravelly rubble with a frequent mixture of broken amphorae, mortaria and roof-tiles. Only a few fragments of the stone coiling remain. The excavators hesitate to offer any conjecture as to the purpose of the wall; but they are of the opinion that it is probably unique in the British Isles.
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Further Discoveries at Colchester. Nature 136, 251–252 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/136251c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/136251c0