Abstract
RECENT excavations on the site of the Roman city of Uriconium, which lies beneath the modern Wroxeter, five miles from Shrewsbury, were described by Miss Kathleen Kenyon, the field director of the excavation, at ameeting of the Society of Antiquaries of London on May 12. Some years ago excavations were carried out with the object of determining the position and character of the defences of the legionaries' camp, but without success, nor has investigation been more successful on the present occasion. Much information, however, has been obtained about the history of the city. It would appear that Uriconium, which was the fourth largest Roman city in Britain, was founded about A.D. 48 as the headquarters of theFourteenth and Twentieth Legions, of which it was the station while Wales was being subdued. When the legions were moved to Chester, Uriconium became the tribal capital of the Cornovii. Two successive defensive systems of the city have been found, of which the earlier, dating from about the end of the first century of our era, enclosed a much smaller area than the later. This latter dates from the middle of the second century, and encloses about 170 acres. It marks the largest expansion of the town.The structure known as the Baths Building, which was excavated in 1859, was re-examined. It was found that originally it had not been intended for use as baths, but had consisted of two ranges of large rooms on either side of an enclosed courtyard, with a long two-sided hall beside it. This was built about A.D. 140 and must have formed part of the public buildings, possibly the law courts, of the town. The Forum opposite was nearly contemporary. Not very much later the whole was transformed into an elaborate and complicated bath of the usual Roman type. An interesting discovery was the body of an infant which had been placed below the floorat the time of the alteration, possibly as a foundation burial. At the end of the third century the building was destroyed by fire, but was restored in a partial and slipshod manner. It remained in use for a further hundred years.
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Roman Wroxeter. Nature 141, 965 (1938). https://doi.org/10.1038/141965a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/141965a0