A Ceramic Tile from Kent

Image: a ceramic tile from Castle Hill, Folkestone, Kent, excavated by Pitt-Rivers in 1878

During August, we are publishing through this blog a series of new photographs taken by archaeological photographer Ian Cartwright for an online Image Gallery created with the support of the Arts and Humanities Research Council. You can read more about the gallery here, and you can see the whole gallery online here.

Here is the text for this image:

This abraded ceramic tile, of Romano-British or post-Roman date, is from Pitt-Rivers’ fieldwork at Castle Hill in Folkestone, Kent in 1878. Initially believing its earthworks (known locally as ‘Caesar’s Camp’) dated from the Roman invasions of Britain, his excavations revealed the monument in fact to be a medieval timber castle. Four different museum catalogue numbers are present, and a hand-written label describes the circumstances of discovery. The label reads: FRAGMENT OF NORMAN OR ROMAN TILE FOUND IN INTERIOR SLOP TO UPPER RAMPART WEST END BENEATH NORMAN CARVING CAESAR’S CAMP FOLKESTONE JUNE 26TH 1878 THE ONLY PIECE FOUND IN THE CAMP. Written for museum display, the label’s text retains elements of the General’s interpretive challenges in the field – singling out this possibly Romano-British find from a site that proved to be medieval in date, and describing the monument as a ‘camp’ (a term suggesting a prehistoric hillfort or Roman military camp) rather than a castle. (Pitt Rivers Museum Accession Number 1884.138.25)

Pitt-Rivers in Kent

image: an example of the rare money of Matilda, struck by the moneyer Sweting at Oxford. This coin was excavated from Castle Hill, Folkestone by Pitt-Rivers in 1878, misidentified by him as a coin of Stephen, and appears not to have been passed to the Pitt Rivers Museum by the General when he donated his collection in 1884. Through another route, however, the coin came to the Ashmolean Museum, where it is now held. The full story is explored in the 'Pitt-Rivers an Kent' paper below.

We have published a draft of our first Excavating Pitt-Rivers project report today. The full paper, on Pitt-Rivers' fieldwork in the county of Kent, is published online here - and the opening lines are below. We actively encourage comments on this paper from researchers with knowledge of the history and archaeology of Kent, who can help us to add to the details that we have been able to assemble so far - please email comments to dan.hicks@prm.ox.ac.uk

This paper explores the evidence for General Augustus Pitt-Rivers’ archaeological fieldwork in the county of Kent, with particular attention to using the archaeological material from the founding collection of the Pitt Rivers Museum (PRM), University of Oxford – which has been documented through the Arts Council England-funded  Excavating Pitt-Rivers project – as a primary source.  A major aim of the project is to demonstrate the potential for museumcollections to represent resources for the writing, and re-writing, of the history of science, using 19th-century archaeological activities of General Pitt-Rivers as a case study.

Continue reading this paper at http://www.academia.edu/3071375/Pitt-Rivers_in_Kent 

Two objects from Kent

The Excavating Pitt-Rivers project is continuing to work through the Kent material, photographing and documenting the objects excavated by the General in the county. Here are two of the more unusual examples of the many archaeological objects excavated from Kent by General Pitt-Rivers that our team is documenting.

This unusually shaped natural flint (PRM 1884.140.1308) is covered in a black deposit.  It was excavated in 1868 from a pit located between St. Peter's and Reading Street on the Isle of Thanet.

This chalk object (PRM 1884.138.13) was excavated at Caesar’s Camp in 1878.  Pitt-Rivers described the object as a “Fragment of dish or mould, in chalk, with a hole bored from both sides; found in an oblong pit at the foot of the interior slope of Upper Rampart, June 8th (1882:464).” 

Below is an illustration of the chalk fragment, from Pitt-Rivers' report on the Caesar's Camp excavations, published in 1882.

References

Pitt-Rivers, A. H. L. F. 1882. Excavations at Caesar's Camp near Folkestone, conducted in June and July 1878. Archaeologia 47(2): 429-465.

Pitt-Rivers in the Isle of Thanet

Image: Photograph (2013) and illustration (1869) of the flints excavated and collected from the Isle of Thanet (Kent, England) by General Pitt-Rivers.

The Excavating Pitt-Rivers team is currently working on the material that the General collected and excavated during his time in Kent. Whilst looking at material from the Isle of Thanet we found a number of lithics, previously unrecorded, that match illustrations in one of Lane Fox’s earliest publications (Lane-Fox 1869), as shown in the photograph above, which is reproduced alongside the 1869 illustration.

In this 1869 publication, he described his ‘examination’ of the Isle of Thanet. Pitt-Rivers explored an area stretching from ‘a mile north of Margate to Broadstairs and Ramsgate, and to a distance of a mile or two inland from those places’. The paper described his methods of identifying ancient flints:

“…there is no real difficulty in detecting the ancient from the modern flakes; dark flakes with a dull surface must be rejected as modern, those of ancient date are of a light blue colour on their fractured surfaces.” (Lane-Fox 1869: 6-7)

The paper also discussed the sourcing of raw materials and the importance of understanding this. He compared his finds of flint objects in Oxfordshire to those found on the Isle of Thanet, contrasting the lack of available flint sources in Oxfordshire with their relative abundance in Kent.

Keep an eye out in the upcoming weeks for more exciting finds from Kent, as our documentation process continues.

References
Lane-Fox, A. 1869. 'On some flint implements found associated with Roman remains in Oxfordshire and the Isle of Thanet.' Journal of the Ethnological Society of London (1869-1870), 1.1: 1-12.

Pitt-Rivers in Kent - public lecture

image: "Sections of Caesar's Camp or Castle Hill, near Folkestone", from Pitt-Rivers 1883. Excavations at Caesar's Camp near Folkestone, conducted in June and July 1878. Archaeologia 47(2): 429-465.

As the first of the public lectures for the Excavating Pitt-Rivers project, Dan Hicks will be introducing  the project, and speaking about the General's excavations in Kent, at an event on 21 February. The talk is hosted by A Town Unearthed - a community archaeology programme funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund. Details are below. For further details, please email townunearthed@canterbury.ac.uk

Thursday 21 February, 7pm-8.30pm
Exhibition Talk: Excavating Pitt-Rivers - Pitt-Rivers in Kent.
Dr Dan Hicks, Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford
University Centre Folkestone, Mill Bay, Folkestone. CT20 1JG.

More details on the Town Unearthed project are here - www.atownunearthed.co.uk

Excavating Pitt-Rivers curatorial assistants

A card label thought to be hand-written and wax-sealed by General Pitt-Rivers. It is tied to an iron object (PRM 1884.138.46), recorded by the Excavating Pitt-Rivers curatorial team on 17 January whilst working through metal objects from the site of Caesar's Camp, Folkestone. The wax seal appears to show a griffin and a deer mounted on two crowns.

The Excavating Pitt-Rivers project is now underway, and two Curatorial Assistants have joined the team. This blog post introduces these new team members – Carlotta Gardner and Judy White – and their role in the project over the coming 12 months.

Carlotta received her BSc in Archaeology from the University of Bradford, and recently completed her MSc at the Institute of Archaeology, UCL, and has previously worked at English Heritage and volunteered at the British Museum. Her background lies largely in archaeological science and she has a specific interest in archaeometallurgy.

Judy received her BA and MSc in Archaeology from the University of Southampton, specialising in osteoarchaeology.  She has since worked in a variety of collections-based curatorial, research and documentation roles at the Natural History Museum, Manchester Museum, English Heritage and Oxford University Museums.

Carlotta and Judy will be working with the primary archaeological material, enhancing database records and researching the details of excavations and sites from which General Pitt-Rivers collected artefacts. Through this work, the primary documentation – and the online digital records – for the English archaeological collections made by General Pitt-Rivers will be enhanced. The team will work through English counties exchanging information with local authority archaeologists, Historic Environment Records, and local archaeological societies. Judy and Carlotta’s collections-based work will also provide crucial new data for the project’s public archaeology programme.