Silchester: Changing Visions of a Roman Town

This volume draws together for the first time all the fieldwork known to have taken place from the earliest located trenches in the 1720s up until the modern campaigns of Fulford. It integrates this work with a new geophysical survey of 217ha to provide a new overarching narrative for the town.

The volume starts with a historiography of work on the city from earliest antiquarian investigations. This sense of changing interpretations of the site permeates all the later discussion, showing how new discoveries have transformed understandings. The core of the volume contains the empirical data, mapping the past excavations alongside evidence from aerial photography, fieldwalking, LiDAR and geophysics. The final sections provide essays in interpretation, with thematic reviews of: the defenses; the development of the oppidum; the military connection; the mortuary landscape; trade and industry; and pubic entertainment. Finally a narrative overview examines how the town’s remains have been interpreted within an historical setting.