'Sustenance in a strange land', in Ottaway, P. (ed). A Victory Celebration (Colchester, 75-82.

A VICTORY CELEBRATION:Papers on the Archaeology of Colchester and Late Iron Age–Roman

Britain presented to Philip Crummy

Edited byPatrick Ottaway

Friends of Colchester Archaeological Trust

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Published by Colchester Archaeological Trust andDistributed on their behalf by The Friends of Colchester Archaeological Trust171 Wivenhoe RoadAlresfordColchesterEssex CO7 8AQ

ISBN 0 897719 12 4

© Indivual authors 2006

Copy editing and page layout by Val Kinsler, 100% Proof, York YO32 2SB

Indexed by Susan Vaughan

Cover illustration by Stephen Crummy

Printed by:Short Run Press Ltd, Exeter

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Much of what we as archaeologists excavate is con-nected with what the inhabitants of the sites chose toeat and drink. Most of the tons of pottery sherds arefrom vessels used either to transport foodstuffs or tocook and serve them. The same is true to a lesserextent of the glass and metal vessels. Equally, themajority of the animal bone comes from butchery orcooking waste. Some remains, such as mineralisedseeds and fruits in cess pits, might indeed be said to beintimately connected with eating. Strangely, thoughwe use all this material to tell us many useful things todo with dating, trade patterns, herd management andother economic matters, the reason why it was thereon sites in the first place tends to be quietly ignored.This is somewhat odd, as various studies have shownthat useful insights into Romano-British society can begained by looking at the function of pottery (e.g.Millett 1979; Evans 1993); and nearly three decadesago King (1978) demonstrated that meat consumptionvaried with time and type of community. Someyounger doctoral students (e.g. Hawkes 2002; Pitts2005) have started to engage with the topic but on thewhole it is a hugely under-explored area. Perhaps thisis because eating and drinking are seen as enjoyableand thus too frivolous a topic for serious study. Thiswould reflect the attitude held in society more gener-ally where politics, business etc. are discussed in the�proper� parts of newspapers, and matters to do witheating and drinking are relegated to the lifestyle sup-plements alongside gardening, fashion and the astrol-ogy column. Yet food, and the rituals and practicesthat surround its consumption are a very basic andobvious way in which one community will distinguish

itself from another. The food you eat and the way youprepare it may well be a result of your ethnicity, yourclass, your religion or your age, or indeed a combina-tion of all these and other factors. The study of thesepatterns can provide deep insights into the past, but todo this we need to establish what those patterns were.

Colchester provides an ideal place to start thisexploration. The fortress, founded on a green field sitein AD 43, converted to a colonia in 49, and then burntto the ground in the Boudican rising of 60/1 provideswell-dated evidence of the highest order. The exten-sive excavations in the city-centre in the 1970s and1980s, together with their publication in the ColchesterArchaeological Reports, provide a very large quantity ofdata to mine. Many of the sites provide data that canbe directly associated with either the fortress or thecolonia and within the fortress a range of occupationtypes is represented. The excavations at Lion Walk andthe Gilberd School uncovered the barracks of ordinarylegionaries, while those at Culver Street revealed thehouses of senior officers and the centurial quarters ofthe 1st cohort (see Fig. 36 for the main sites mentionedin text).

The inhabitants of the fortress and first colonia wereundoubtedly an immigrant community. Their ethnici-ty may have been quite varied and it would be wrongto think of them simply as ethnically Italian. TheTwentieth Legion, which was garrisoned in thefortress, had come from the German frontier. Givenpatterns of legionary recruitment, it is likely to haveincluded men who had been recruited not just in Italybut also Spain and Gallia Narbonensis and latterly locallyin Germany (Millett 1999, 195). Though it has been

9. Sustenance in a Strange LandH.E.M. Cool

75

Figure 36: Location of the main sites mentioned in the text

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questioned whether by this time newly foundedcolonies were indeed peopled by retired soldiers (ibid.),it does seem likely that in this brand-new provincethey would have provided the most obvious pool oflikely colonists. To the ethnicities already noted, aPannonian influence might have come via retired sol-diers from the Ninth Legion previously stationedthere. This was another of the legions in Britain whichwould have had soldiers ready for discharge. In addi-tion to the legionaries there would also have been aux-iliaries, who would have included Thracians andBatavians, ready to retire and acquire citizenship. ThatThracians were present at Colchester in some capacityis shown by the tombstone of Longinius Sdapeze, aduplicarius of the ala prima Thracum (RIB I, 201). Alas, itis not now possible to believe the oft-repeated storythat the missing parts of this were the result of destruc-tion by Boudica�s followers, given they were clearlyjust overlooked in the original excavation (Crummy1997, 30), but he is a reminder of the rich ethnic mixthat can be expected to have been present in Colchesterprior to AD 60/1. To the native Britons they might allhave been �Roman�, among themselves they are likelyto have recognised much more diversity.

Of course the soldiers and colonists too might havebeen under some misapprehensions about the neigh-bours living out at Sheepen. To them these may havebeen �the natives�, but other Britons living in differentregions of the country might have felt they had verylittle in common with the people living there. Theexcavations in the 1930s and 1970s (Hawkes and Hull1947; Niblett 1985) uncovered parts of the settlementbelonging to the elite of a tribe that had for the previ-ous century or so been very open to influences fromRoman Gaul. The changes seen in the material cultureof this area and neighbouring ones in the south-easthas even led some people to argue that the areashould be regarded as occupied by a series of clientkingdoms between Caesar�s raids and the Claudianinvasion (Creighton 2000). Comparing the consump-tion patterns seen on the city centre sites and atSheepen is thus not a simple dichotomy between�Roman� and �native�, but some differences in prefer-ences do emerge and when the comparisons arewidened out to other native settlements in the areawhich do not have such an elite component, more pro-nounced ones occur.

Before examining precisely what the eating anddrinking patterns were, it is useful to review the qual-ity of the data that can be used. Environmental evi-dence is available from only a sub-set of the city-centresites and not from Sheepen. This reflects the dates ofthe various excavations as environmental samplinghas only become routine in the last two decades. Theanimal bone evidence is more directly comparable,though naturally lacking useful information from the1930s excavations at Sheepen. There is a much moreeven coverage of the pottery from both areas butunfortunately not in ways that are always directlycomparable. A particular problem with the potteryfrom the city-centre sites is that, as currently pub-lished, it is impossible to reconstruct assemblages thatwould have been associated with particular areas ofthe fort and colonia, which is particularly unfortunateas there are hints that very distinctive groups of ves-sels were associated with particular areas. Such prob-lems should not deter us from exploring the data asthey are typical of what may be expected with mostpublished archaeological material.

To start with meat consumption from the maindomesticated animals, Table 7 summarises the bonefrom both fortress/colonia contexts and Sheepen, witha Late Iron Age/very early Roman assemblage fromthe native site at Ivy Chimneys near Witham. As canbe seen, most of the Colchester sites, includingSheepen, favour cattle followed by pig and thensheep. The only exception was the Gilberd Schoolassemblage where the division between the specieswas approximately even. At Ivy Chimneys, by con-trast, while cattle still dominate sheep bones take sec-ond place and pork does not appear much favoured.

Tables like this using NISP (numbers of identifiedspecimens) fragment count data can give some feel formeat preferences but are fairly crude because they donot take into account the very different size of thebeasts, the fact that after butchery different amountsare discarded and the fact that cattle, sheep and pigsdo not have the same number of bones. A betterunderstanding can be acquired by looking at theamount of meat the bones might represent. A 19th-century military manual providing advice to officers incharge of supply noted that half the carcase of a cowwas discarded, just under that amount (45%) of asheep, but only a quarter of that of a pig (Goldsworthy

76 A Victory Celebration

Table 7: Animal bone from Colchester, Sheepen and Ivy Chimneys (data from CAR 12, table 3.1; 1985, mf 4:A3,table 17; Luff 1999, table 28)

Cattle (%age) Sheep (%age) Pig (%age) Total (frs NISP)

Culver St AD 44�61 44 23 33 931Gilberd School AD 44�61 32 31 37 850Sheepen (6) AD 54�57 46 16 38 515Sheepen (3) AD 49�61 44 22 35 1074Sheepen (7) AD 54�61 47 24 29 2732Ivy Chimneys 1st century 60 30 10 1301


1996, 292, table 4). Fortunately some of the Colchesteranimal bone data have been quantified by weight andthat allows this aspect of the evidence to be explored.In Table 8 the weight of meat the animal bone mayrepresent if the 19th-century figures are used is esti-mated. This is making various assumptions, of course,not least that in these two very different environmentspeople had similar ideas about what was, and was not,edible. It is still an approximation to reality, but per-haps a more realistic one than NISP data.

As can be seen, the fragment count data are proba-bly severely underestimating the role pork productsplayed in the diet. Of particular interest is the markeddifference between the two fortress assemblages, withpork products being commoner at Culver Street thanthe Gilberd School. The Culver Street assemblage wasderived from an area of the site occupied at that timeby tribunes� houses whilst at the Gilberd School thearea was occupied by ordinary legionaries. It is possi-ble that we are looking here at a difference producedby both ethnicity and rank. A liking for pork was a dis-tinctly Italian and southern Mediterranean tastewhereas beef was preferred in German areas (King1999, 189). It is also noticeable throughout the Romanperiod in Britain that pork is regularly associated withhigh-status dining (Cool 2006, 82�3).

In addition to pork, beef and lamb/mutton, domesticfowl were regularly consumed by the inhabitants ofboth Colchester and Sheepen (CAR 12, table 5.1; Luff1985, 148). In the city centre sites where sufficient envi-ronmental sampling was carried out, evidence of eggconsumption is regularly encountered (Murphy 1992a,280). Other meat sources appear to have been muchrarer. The consumption of game was a rarity, as it was onmost Late Iron Age and Roman period sites in Britain(Cool 2006, 111�14). The consumption of fresh fish tooseems to have been uncommon, as where fish boneswere recovered they tended to come from oily fish ofthe sort used in salted fish products (Locker 1992, 278).

The amphorae reveal an interesting pattern associ-ated with the consumption of such products and offish sauce. Table 9 shows all the amphorae from thecity-centre sites found in Boudican or pre-Boudican

contexts. Given the nature of the pottery quantifica-tion it is not possible to isolate the amphorae frag-ments associated with the definitely military contextsfrom the fortress, or from particular areas of thefortress and colonia. Instead it is possible to look atthose from contexts pre-dating AD 55 and those of AD55�61. Because the latter includes all the destructiondeposits, far more is to be expected in this divisioneven though it is much shorter. As can be seen, thenormal pattern is for the ratio between the two peri-ods to be 20%:80% (by weight). The exception is thesalted fish product amphorae. As there can be notaphonomic or supply explanation for this pattern, itdoes suggest that the consumption of these productsdeclined in the colonia period. Fish sauce (garum) isalways thought of as a quintessentially Roman ingre-dient, so this decline is a curious one. As the evidencestands though, it would appear that in the final yearsbefore the colonia was destroyed, garum was a muchless common ingredient than it had been earlier. It ishere that the inability to relate the pottery to particu-lar sites becomes a problem, because it may be that fishproducts were associated in the fortress with particu-lar areas such as the high-status one at Culver Street. Ifso, perhaps we are looking at an economic reason forthe decline. Perhaps the bulk of the colonists could nolonger commonly afford these items.

Sustenance in a Strange Land 77

Table 8: A comparison of bone weights and estimated meat yields from selected assemblages at Culver Street andthe Gilberd School (original weight data derived from CAR 12, table 3.5a)

Site Period Cattle (%age) Sheep (%age) Pig (%age) Weight (kg)

Culver Street E Fortress Bone 74 8 18 5.36Meat 53 7 40 7.42

Gilberd School A Fortress Bone 72 15 14 11.81Meat 55 14 31 15.39

Culver Street E Colonia Bone 77 8 15 47.85Meat 58 8 33 63.01

Gilberd A Colonia Bone 67 15 18 19.14Meat 47 13 40 27.19

Gilberd A Colonia Bone 70 13 17 22.38Meat 51 12 37 30.59

Table 9: Amphorae from Colchester in the period AD44�60/1 (data from CAR 10, tables 3.2, 3.4 and 3.6)

Contents To AD 55 To AD 60/1 Total (kg)(%age) (%age)

Wine 20 80 74.65Defrutum 21 79 7.76Olives 12 88 9.72Fruits � 100 3.05Dates � 100 0.03Fish prod 40 60 30.34Olive oil 17 83 258.73Total (kg) 72.73 311.55 384.28


The salted fish products would not have been anovelty to the native elite by the time of the Conquestas the distinctive amphorae are known in pre-Conquest contexts (Cool 2006, 59), so it is not surpris-ing that amphorae associated with fish products wererecovered from Sheepen. Unfortunately, it is not easyto compare the Sheepen amphorae with those fromthe city-centre sites as they have been quantified inentirely different ways, the former by minimum num-bers and the latter by weight. The minimum numberapproach was extended in the Sheepen amphoraereport to a form of quantification by how much theassumed number of amphorae contained. This is farfrom ideal given the known problems with any formof minimum number estimate, but the figures do seemto suggest that salted fish products were available andbeing consumed at Sheepen in approximately similarquantities as in the city-centre sites (see Table 10). It isnot possible to break down the consumption patternsthere in the same way as can be done for the city-centre sites, so it is not possible to say if there was a rel-ative decline in their consumption as there appears tohave been in the colonia. One of the Stanway gravesdoes cast an interesting sidelight, however, on howthese peculiar products may have been regarded bythe Britons. In the so-called �game grave� an amphorafor fish sauce was found together with surgical instru-ments and divining rods and it seems likely that thedeceased was a healer in life (Crummy 1997, 67). If so,perhaps garum was regarded as medicine rather thana vital culinary ingredient!

Table 10 appears to show that olive oil was a muchcommoner ingredient in fortress and colonia than itwas at Sheepen. This probably reflects the fact that itwas used both for cleaning the body at the baths andas a fuel for lamps, as well as a culinary ingredient.The fortress and colonia have produced lamps in largenumbers (Eckardt 2002b, 61�9) whereas they were rarefinds during the excavations at Sheepen (Hawkes andHull 1947, 201). There would thus have been a consid-erably higher demand in the city-centre for oil as fuel

than there would have been at Sheepen, and we mightsuspect that the same may have been true of oil forbathing. So it seems likely that much of the oil foundat Sheepen was for culinary use. In this the inhabitantsof Sheepen would have had more in common with thesoldiers and colonists than they would have had withpeople who lived on sites like Ivy Chimneys, wherethere is no evidence of olive oil at this date (Turner-Walker and Wallace 1999, 128).

The conflagration that followed the overrunning ofthe colonia by Boudica�s army provided ideal condi-tions for the preservation of carbonised plant remains.Normally, grain or any other organic material in a firewill burn away, but if it is covered by ash at an earlystage then it will merely carbonise. From the car-bonised grain deposits found in both grain stores andaround hearths, it seems clear that spelt wheat was thepreferred grain for bread making. Emmer wheat wasless commonly found but fully cleaned samples werefound on two sites (Murphy 1984, 105, 108, 110; 1992a,281�2; 1992c, 330). Spelt would be better if a leavenedloaf was required; emmer, by contrast, produces heavybread but is much better for porridge and cakes(Dickson and Dickson 2000, 120). From the differentcompositions of the various charred grain assem-blages, it seems that this distinction was perfectly wellunderstood.

Charring also preserved more exotic items such asthe dates found at Lion Walk (Murphy 1984, 40),though on the whole the mineralised remains fromvarious latrines provide better evidence for the fruitconsumed. From these there is evidence of exoticimports such as grapes and figs, which presumablyarrived as dried fruit as well as the locally availableelderberry, raspberry and cherry (Murphy 1992a, 283).Both of the latrine assemblages that have been studiedbelong to the military phase of Culver Street which, asalready noted, should relate to some of the higherranking members of the legion. Indeed, one of thelatrines was part of a tribune�s house. The lack oflatrines associated with the men�s barracks on othersites is to be regretted as it would have provided anopportunity to see whether ordinary legionaries hadaccess to the exotic fruits as well.

Turning to drink there is good evidence for boththe wine and beer drunk. Judged by the amphoraeevidence much of the wine drunk in the fortress andcolonia came from Italy and Spain with Gaul andRhodes contributing smaller amounts (CAR 10, tables3.2, 3.4 and 3.6). A similar pattern can be seen atSheepen (Sealey 1985, table 1). A carbonised grainassemblage at Culver Street has provided evidence forthe type of beer drunk as it consisted of malt for thebrewing process (Murphy 1992a, 282). It consisted ofspelt wheat and barley in a ratio of 10:1. This prefer-ence for wheat as the main component of beer is thecommon rule in Roman Britain (Cool 2006, 141), buthere the admixture of some barley was presumablydeliberate. One of the reasons that modern brewers


Table 10: A comparison of the amphorae products inthe city-centre sites and at Sheepen (data from CAR10, tabs 3.2, 3.4 and 3.6; Sealey 1985, table 4)

Contents City-centre Sheepen)(%age) (%age)

Wine 19 45Defrutum 2 7Olives 3 �Fruits >1 �Dates >1 �Fish products 8 10Olive oil 67 39Quantification method Weight (kg) Volume (litres)Total 384.28 3605


prefer barley malt is that the husks act as a natural fil-ter. It may have been for that reason it was included,though equally it may have been for taste reasons. Asall beer drinkers know, a wheat beer and a barley-based beer are two very different beverages.

So far we have looked mainly at the food and itspackaging to explore the food and drink, but the ves-sels it was cooked in, and eaten and drunk out of, arealso informative. Table 11 presents the pottery fromthe city-centre sites arranged according to how com-mon the types are. At the outset it should be said thatthis is misleading for tablewares as the samian is notquantified and cannot be included. This is a problemwe shall return to below but for now the question offood preparation vessels can be considered.

The predominance of cooking jars is not surprisingas these were the principal cooking utensil. Attentioncan be drawn though to the fact that mortaria are rel-atively uncommon. They and cooking dishes of the�Pompeian red� family of non-stick fabrics occur incomparable numbers. Given that most people seemortaria as an unproblematic and common utensil inthe �Roman� kitchen (e.g. Alcock 2001, 117�18), and thenon-slip dishes as a more specialised one, this obser-vation is interesting. The relatively small numbers ofmortaria cannot be explained simply because they arerobust vessels needed in smaller numbers than, forexample, an item of tableware which might be neededin multiple numbers so that each person could havetheir own. The same criteria would apply to storagejars and they are much more numerous. The low levelof mortaria use in this most �Romanised� of communi-

ties again highlights the strange prevalence of mor-taria in Romano-British assemblages (Hartley 1998,209; Cool 2004, 30�2), and again warns against seeingthem as an unproblematic indication of the adoptionof a �Romanised� cuisine.

As alluded to above, the figures for tablewares inTable 11 are misleading because the samian potterywas not quantified in the pottery report. It is possibleto rectify this omission slightly by looking at data com-piled by Professor Millett (1987) where samian assem-blages thought to be of Boudican date were quantifiedby form. The basis of the quantification is not statedbut it is presumably a minimum number count. Table12 summarises the data from a variety of city-centresites together with material from the two potteryshops. As can be seen, the cup and dish figures in Table11 considerably underestimate the role they played intableware assemblages, while the bowl figures do alsobut to a less marked extent.

It is very unfortunate that it is not possible to recon-struct the pottery tableware assemblages from the dif-ferent sites because the reports do hint at intriguingdifferences that might imply different consumptionpatterns between officers and men. In the latrine ofthe tribune�s house on Culver Street an exceptionalnumber of cups were found. A minimum of twelveItalian eggshell examples and at least two similar cupsin other wares were present, while a third was associ-ated with the house. The catalogued examples alone(e.g. CAR 10, 227 no. 43, 242 nos 1�3 and 4, 444 no. 37)account for nearly half the total EVE value of cups forthe earliest phase shown in Table 11, so it may be sus-pected that nearly all of the cups in wares other thansamian were associated with this elite residence. Quitewhy so many cups should end up in the latrine is amatter of speculation, but the association with the eliteresidence might suggest that officers favoured cups.This would be easy enough to explore were the samianto be quantified and combined with the archive listingof all the pottery now in Colchester Museum.

It is easier to explore the glass vessel assemblage asthe material from the city-centre sites has been fullycatalogued and can be identified as to site and phase.


Table 11: Pottery forms (excluding samian) from thecity-centre sites (data from CAR 10, tables 4.2, 4.4, 5.2,5.9, 5.11, 5.14, 5.16, 5.18, 5.20, 5.25, 5.30, 5.36, 6.3, 6.6,6.14, 6.16, 6.20, 6.26. 6.30, 6.32. PEG groups 3 and 4)

Form To AD 55 To AD 60/1 Total (EVE) (EVE) (EVE)

Flagon 17.14 42.60 59.74Cooking jar 14.63 35.49 50.12Beaker 7.90 27.89 35.79Bowl 8.37 21.45 29.82Storage jar 3.44 20.64 24.08Lid 4.29 19.14 23.43Dish 3.31 10.97 14.28Jar 2.90 9.76 12.66Cup 5.30 3.94 9.24Mortaria 2.06 5.84 7.90Constricted 1.13 5.33 6.46neck jar

Cooking dish 1.06 4.98 6.04Handled jar 3.14 1.32 4.46Cheese press � 0.11 0.11Total 74.67 209.46 284.13

Table 12: Samian from Boudican deposits quantifiedby form (data from Millett 1987, appendix 2. Numeralsin brackets after site name refer to site description inappendix 1 of that paper)

Site Bowl Dish Cup Total

North Hill (II) 23 34 18 75West Stockwell (III) 8 1 5 14Cups Hotel (V) 1 3 3 7Lion Walk (IX) 7 1 3 111st pottery shop (VI) 29 101 104 2342nd pottery shop (VIII) 44 106 108 258Total 112 246 241 599

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Table 13 shows all the material that can be identified asto form associated with the fortress phases. At thisperiod, which is before utilitarian glass containers startto occur in large numbers, tablewares always domi-nate. The numbers are small, as they always are withglass assemblages, but the remarkable feature of thetable is how rare glass vessels are in fortress phase con-texts at the high-status site at Culver Street.Considering all the Roman glass recovered during theexcavations, irrespective of context, Culver Street wasthe second most prolific site out of the four, producingalmost three times the amount of glass (by fragmentcount) that the Gilberd School excavations did (CAR 8,table 1.2). Glass vessels almost appear to have beenshunned at Culver Street compared to the barrackssites of the Gilberd School and Lion Walk and theextramural site of Balkerne Lane. The answer may liein the fact that the fortress assemblage is dominated byfragments of pillar-moulded bowls. These vary in sizebut are nearly always of an appreciably larger capacitythan the cups favoured in the tribune�s house, as canbe seen from Figure 37. We do not know for certainwhat these bowls were used for, but they could have

been drinking vessels given their rim forms. Perhapsthe glass repertoire available in Colchester during thefortress period did not provide the cup forms the offi-cers required. It was not until the colonia period thatglass cups and beakers formed a much greater part ofthe glass assemblage. There are, therefore, tantalisinghints that officers and men wanted different capacitydrinking vessels. Was this a question of different typesof drink (beer versus wine) or different modes of con-sumption (the individual cup versus the communalbowl)? Currently we do not have the data to explorethis fully, but it is undoubtedly the case that were thepottery archive from the excavations to be re-exam-ined, progress could be made.

Whether or not there were status differences inwhat and how the officers and men drank, one thingseems to have united both the soldiers and thecolonists and that was a dislike of an infused drinkthat was popular among the native population of thetime. The evidence for this is in the form of a distinc-tive style of strainer bowl that was made in both cop-per alloy and pottery (see Fig. 38, 1). These have beenthe subject of several studies by Paul Sealey (1999;


Table 13: Vessel glass from fortress contexts (data derived from CAR 8, quantified by EVEs according to methodoutlined in Cool and Baxter 1999)

Type Culver St (EVE) Gilberd School (EVE) Lion Walk (EVE) Balkerne Lane (EVE) Total

Bowl 1.00 1.00 1.80 2.40 6.20Beaker � � 0.40 � 0.40Cup � � 0.20 1.00 1.20Jug 0.14 0.28 0.56 0.42 1.40Jug/flask � 0.40 0.40 0.20 1.00Bottle � 0.28 0.28 0.14 0.70Jar � � � 0.17 0.17Total 1.14 1.96 3.64 4.33 11.07

Figure 37: A selection of the pottery cups from Culver Street (top row) and examples of glass pillar-moulded bowls showingthe commonest sizes (bottom row). (After CAR 8 and CAR 10)

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2004) who has concluded that they were most likely tohave been for an infused beer. It is noticeable that theextensive publication of the pottery from the city-centre sites has produced no examples of fragmentsfrom this distinctive form whereas several have beenrecovered from both Sheepen excavations (Hawkesand Hull 1947, 273�5, figs 50, no. 8 and fig. 57, no 12;Niblett 1985, fig. 33) and a metal example was recov-ered from the grave with medical equipment atStanway (Crummy 1997, 67). That example preservedwormwood in its spout which would have produced avery distinctive flavour, one possibly not to the taste ofnon-British people.

Finally, the finds can tell us a little about table man-ners. Polite Roman dining regimes required hand-washing and Romans famously drank their winewatered, looking down on barbarians who swigged itneat. Both activities would have made use of metalvessels, and fortunately for us, these were of multi-piece construction so though no complete examplessurvive, we can know whether or not they were pre-sent through the fittings. Hand-washing could be carried out using large copper alloy basins (see Fig. 38,3 and 5). Handles from these have been found in mili-tary contexts at Balkerne Lane and in a colonia periodone at Long Wyre Street (CAR 2, 71�3, nos 239, 244 and246). Water jugs from the wine service are also verydistinctive (see Fig. 38, 2 and 4), and a complete handleand lid fitting came from Culver Street (Crummy1992b, 156, no. 544). It was handed in by a construction

worker and so was technically unstratified but wasbelieved to have come from Boudican destructiondebris. An example may also have been present onLion Walk during the colonia period (CAR 2, 73, no.2048). It is interesting that precisely the same sort of fit-tings were present at Sheepen as there are the fittingsfrom at least three water jugs and two basin handles(Hawkes and Hull 1947, 332 nos 12�17). There arehints here that the wine known from all the amphoraeat Sheepen, may have been consumed by its inhabi-tants in what the �Romans� in the fort and colonia mayhave considered a polite and proper manner.

One area where the table manners at Sheepen mayhave fallen short is how the food was actually con-veyed to the mouth. Spoons are not uncommon findsin the city-centre sites (CAR 2, 69, no. 2008; Crummy1992b, 156 no. 535; Crummy 1992c, 215 no. 124), butnone was found in either the 1930s or the 1970s excav-ations at Sheepen. This might be chance, but it does fita pattern observable in elite native burials of the later1st to 2nd centuries. These frequently have multipleplace settings and food as if the deceased was going toneed a banquet in the after-life. What are conspicu-ously rare are utensils such as spoons and knives, sug-gesting that though some of the trappings of politedining were acceptable, others, like how food wasplaced in the mouth, were not.

I hope that this brief exploration of the eating anddrinking habits of the soldiers and colonists inColchester and their neighbours at Sheepen has


Figure 38: Strainer bowl, water jug, basin and fittings. (After Niblett 1985 (1), den Boesterd 1956 (2), Tassinari 1993 (3),CAR 6 (4) and CAR 2 (5)). Scale: nos 1�3, 1:6; nos 4�5, 1:4


shown the rich potential of the material excavated atColchester. Its publication in the volumes of theColchester Archaeological Reports should be seen merelyas a starting point. The data in them, and in thearchive, have the potential to fuel research for years tocome. For that we have to thank not only the authorsof the reports, but especially Philip Crummy himself.Not only did he oversee the excavations, but he hadthe vision and drive to see them through to publica-tion in a splendidly usable form. This, it has to beremembered, was at a time when many other largeurban excavations were banishing all or most of thematerial culture to archive, or the ghetto of the micro-fiche. Other projects just fell by the wayside. It is notdifficult to think of various towns and cities which saw

much excavation in and around the 1970s and 1980s,where final reports are conspicuous by their absence.

To finish on a personal note, I met Philip first in thesummer of 1972 when I dug at Lion Walk the summerbefore I went to university. Since then Colchesterseems to have been the background of my profession-al life. I recall what seemed like months in the stores ofColchester Museum, followed by a shorter time in theTrust�s offices cataloguing metalwork for my doctoralthesis. Then of course there were years working on theglass for CAR 8. Since then the Trust has produced allsorts of interesting groups for me to play with. It hastherefore given me great pleasure to write this articlefor Philip, and I wish him a very happy birthday.



Abbreviation

RIB I Collingwood, R. G. and Wright, R. P., The Roman Inscriptions of Britain. Volume I: Inscriptions on Stone, (Oxford 1967)

Bibliography

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'Sustenance in a strange land', in Ottaway, P. (ed). A Victory Celebration (Colchester, 75-82.

Documents

Transcript of 'Sustenance in a strange land', in Ottaway, P. (ed). A Victory Celebration (Colchester, 75-82.