Hostname: page-component-cb9f654ff-r5d9c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-08-19T09:41:17.747Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Temple of Sulis Minerva at Bath and the End of Roman Britain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

James Gerrard
James Gerrard
Affiliation:
Pre-Construct Archaeology Ltd, Units 54 and 55, Brockley Cross Business Centre, 96 End-well Road, Brockley, London SE4 2PD, UK. E-mail: .
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The temple and baths dedicated to Sulis Minerva at Aquae Sulis (Bath, Somerset) are usually seen as significant in terms of Britain's ‘Romanization’. However, it is argued here that excavations carried out in the inner precinct of the temple revealed a sequence of great importance in understanding the end of Roman Britain. For the first time the documentary, stratigraphic and artefactual evidence is drawn together alongside a series of new radiocarbon dates which establish the date of the temple's demolition as AD 450–500. This raises interesting questions regarding the process of transformation from Roman to post-Roman in Somerset and beyond.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 87 , September 2007 , pp. 148 - 164
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barker, P 1991. Techniques of Archaeological Excavation, LondonGoogle Scholar
Bede, 1968. A History of the English Church and People (ed and trans Sherley-Price, L), HarmondsworthGoogle Scholar
Bidwell, P 1979. The Legionary Bath-house and Basilica and Forum at Exeter, Exeter Archaeol Rep 1, ExeterGoogle Scholar
Blagg, T 1979. ‘The date of the temple at Bath’, Britannia, 10, 101–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blair, J 2005. The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society, OxfordCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Böhme, H 1986. ‘Das Ende der Römerherrschaft in Britannien und die Angelsächsich Besiedlung Englands im 5. Jahrhundert’, Jahrbuch Des Römish-Germanischen Zentral Museums, 33, 469–574Google Scholar
Burnham, B and Wacher, J 1990. The Small Towns of Roman Britain, LondonGoogle Scholar
Carver, M 1995. ‘Roman to Norman at York Minster’, in Excavations at York Minster. Vol I: from Roman fortress to Norman cathedral (eds Phillips, D and Heywood, B), 177–95, LondonGoogle Scholar
Collingwood, R and Myres, J 1936. Roman Britain and the English Settlements, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Collins, R and Gerrard, J (eds) 2004. Debating Late Antiquity in Britain AD 300–700, BAR Brit Ser 365, OxfordCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cunliffe, B 1969. Roman Bath, Rep Res Comm Soc Antiq London 24, LondonCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cunliffe, B 1995. Roman Bath, LondonGoogle Scholar
Cunliffe, B and Davenport, P (eds) 1985. The Temple of Sulis Minerva at Bath. Vol 1: the site, Oxford Univ Comm Archaeol Monogr 7, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Dark, K 1994. Civitas to Kingdom: British political continuity, 300–800, LeicesterGoogle Scholar
Davenport, P 1991. ‘Evidence for ritual activity in the temple precinct of Sulis Minerva’, in Archaeology in Bath 1976–1985 (ed Davenport, P), Oxford Univ Comm Archaeol Monogr 28, 146, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Ellis, P (ed) 2001. Roman Wiltshire and After: papers in honour of Ken Annable, DevizesGoogle Scholar
Esmonde-Cleary, S 1989. The Ending of Roman Britain, LondonGoogle Scholar
Fowler, P 2001. ‘Wansdyke in the woods: an unfinished Roman military earthwork for a non-event’, in Ellis (ed) 2001, 179–98Google Scholar
Fulford, M 1975. ‘The pottery’, in Excavations at Portchester Castle. Vol 1: Roman (ed Cunliffe, B), Rep Res Comm Soc Antiq London 32, 270–367, LondonGoogle Scholar
Fulford, M and Clarke, A 2002. ‘The excavation of Insula IX, Silchester: the first five years of the “Town Life” Project, 1997–2001’, Britannia, 33, 129–66Google Scholar
Gerrard, J 2004. ‘How late is late? Pottery and the fifth century in south-west Britain’, in Collins and Gerrard (eds) 2004, 65–76Google Scholar
Gerrard, J 2005a. ‘Pottery and the end of Roman Britain: the view from Somerset and Dorset’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of YorkGoogle Scholar
Gerrard, J 2005b. ‘A possible late Roman silver hoard from Bath’, Britannia, 36, 311–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, S and Young, C 1985. ‘The Roman pottery’, in Cunliffe and Davenport (eds) 1985, 143–59Google Scholar
Griffiths, N 2001. ‘The Roman army in Wiltshire’, in Ellis (ed) 2001, 39–72Google Scholar
Haverfield, F 1923. The Romanization of Roman Britain, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Hawkes, S and Dunning, G 1961. ‘Soldiers and settlers in Britain: fourth to fifth century’, Medieval Archaeol, 5, 1–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henig, M 2004. ‘Remaining Roman in Britain AD 300–700: the evidence of the portable art’, in Collins and Gerrard (eds) 2004, 13–23Google Scholar
Higham, N 1992. Rome, Britain and the Anglo-Saxons, LondonGoogle Scholar
Howell, R 2000. ‘The demolition of the Roman tetrapylon in Caerleon: an erasure of memory?’, Oxford J Archaeol, 19 (4), 387–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, M 1994. ‘St Paul in the Bail, Lincoln: Britain in Europe’, in ‘Churches Built in Ancient Times’: recent studies in early Christian archaeology (ed Painter, K), Soc Antiq London Occas Pap 16, 325–47, LondonGoogle Scholar
King, A 2005. ‘Animal remains from temples in Roman Britain’, Britannia, 36, 329–70CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Millett, M 1990. The Romanization of Britain, CambridgeGoogle Scholar
Morris, R 1989. Churches in the Landscape, LondonGoogle Scholar
Neal, D 2003. ‘Building 2, Insula XXVII from Veralamium: a reinterpretation of the evidence’, in The Archaeology of Roman Towns: studies in honour of John S Wacher (ed Wilson, P), 195–202, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Nennius, 1980. British History and the Welsh Annals (ed and trans Morris, J), London and ChichesterGoogle Scholar
Ottaway, P 1993. Roman York, 1st edn, LondonGoogle Scholar
Pearce, S 2004. South-western Britain in the Early Middle Ages, Stud Early Hist Europe, LondonGoogle Scholar
Petts, D 2000. Christianity in Roman Britain, StroudGoogle Scholar
Pollard, R 1988. The Roman Pottery of Kent, Kent Archaeol Soc Monogr 5, MaidstoneGoogle Scholar
Rahtz, P 1991. ‘Pagan and Christian by the Severn Sea’, in The Archaeology and History of Glastonbury Abbey: essays in honour of the ninetieth birthday of C A Ralegh Radford (eds Abrams, L and Carley, J), 3–37, LondonGoogle Scholar
Rahtz, P 2000. ‘150 years of Somerset archaeology: looking backwards and into the next millennium’, in Somerset Archaeology (ed Webster, C), 1–6, TauntonGoogle Scholar
Rahtz, P, Hirst, S and Wright, S 2000. Cannington Cemetery, Britannia Monogr Ser 17, LondonGoogle Scholar
Reece, R 1980. ‘Town and country: the end of Roman Britain’, World Archaeol, 12 (i), 77–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reece, R 1986. ‘The coins’, in Houses in Roman Cirencester, Cirencester Excavations 3 (ed Mc Whirr, A), 100–4, CirencesterGoogle Scholar
Rivet, A and Smith, C 1979. The Place-Names of Roman Britain, LondonGoogle Scholar
Sims-Williams, P 1975. ‘Continental influence at Bath monastery in the seventh century’, Anglo-Saxon Engl, 4, 1–10CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sims-Williams, P 1983. ‘The settlement of England in Bede and the Chronicle’, Anglo-Saxon Engl, 12, 1–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Snyder, C 1998. An Age of Tyrants: Britain and the Britons AD 400–600, StroudGoogle Scholar
Swanton, M 2000. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, LondonGoogle Scholar
Symonds, R and Tomber, R 1991. ‘Late Roman London: an assessment of the ceramic evidence from the City of London’, Trans London Middlesex Archaeol Soc, 42, 59–99Google Scholar
Tilley, C 1994. A Phenomenology of Landscape, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Wacher, J 1995. The Towns of Roman Britain, LondonGoogle Scholar
Ward-Perkins, B 1996. ‘Urban continuity?’, in Towns in Transition (eds Christie, N and Loseby, S), 4–17, AldershotGoogle Scholar
White, R and Barker, P 1998. Wroxeter: life and death of a Roman city, StroudGoogle Scholar
Woodward, A and Leach, P 1993. The Uley Shrines: excavation of a ritual complex on West Hill, Uley, Gloucestershire, 1977–1979, Hist Build Monuments Comm Archaeol Rep 17, LondonGoogle Scholar
Yorke, B 1990. Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England, LondonGoogle Scholar
Yorke, B 1993. ‘Fact or fiction? The written evidence for the fifth and sixth centuries AD’, Anglo-Saxon Stud Archaeol Hist, 6, 45–50Google Scholar
Youngs, S 1995. ‘A penannular brooch from near Calne, Wiltshire’, Wiltshire Archaeol Nat Hist Mag, 88, 127–31Google Scholar
Zienkiwicz, D 1986. The Legionary Fortress Baths at Caerleon. Vol I: the buildings, CardiffGoogle Scholar