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Volume 23 - December 1949

Contents

Page 2 of 4

Other

Research Article

  • Customs and Traditions of the Isle of Portland Dorset

  • Robert Douch
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    02 January 2015, pp. 140-152

  • The Isle of Portland reaches out into the waters of the English Channel. Almost a solid block of stone, it is the most southerly point on the Dorset coast. Its greatest length from north to south is four miles and its maximum width one and a half miles, while its entire circumference is less than nine miles. The north of the island is low-lying, but half a mile inland the ground rises steeply to a maximum height of 496 feet above sea-level at the Verne. From here it slopes away gradually to the southern tip or Bill, 20 feet above sea-level. There has never been a town of Portland and the chief centres of population were originally eight hamlets. Today, three of these, Castletown, Fortuneswell and Chesil have merged to form the main settlement in the north or Underhill, as the district is called, On Tophill three more of the hamlets, Reforne, Easton and Wakeham have similarly run together. Weston and Southwell remain hamlets, while another settlement has grown up around the prison at ‘The Grove’.

    The ‘Island’ is, in fact, joined to the mainland by the Chesil Beach. But since this pebble bank extends westwards for ten miles before it meets the Dorset coast at Abbotsbury and could be used as a thoroughfare only with the greatest difficulty, the term ‘island’ is no real misnomer. Between Portland and the immediate mainland to the north runs the Fleet, a narrow arm of the sea, wide enough to make the approach across Smallmouth by ferry, before the building of the modern bridge, awkward and, at times, dangerous.

  • Men, Machines and History*

  • O. G. S. Crawford
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    02 January 2015, pp. 100-106

  • During The Present Century There Has Appeared A New Kind Of History, Concerned Not With Parts But With The Whole Of Human History. There Were, Of Course, Before This, Many Attempts To Write' Universal History'; But They Consisted Merely In Lumping Together In A Single Continuous Narrative Condensed Histories Of The Chief Countries Of The Old World. This Synthetic Or Accretive Method Has The Same Defects When Concerned With The Sequence Of Time As It Has When Concerned With Space. You Cannot Make A Correct Map Of The World Or Of Any Part Of It Simply By Sticking Together On A Single Sheet The Plans Of Separate Portions Surveyed Independently By Different People, With No Comprehensive Framework Binding Together The Whole Area. Nor, To Vary The Metaphor, Is A Cathedral Constructed By Putting Several Parish Churches Together Beneath One Roof. The New History Is Related To The Old Universal Histories Exactly As Is A Modern Map Of The World To Such Medieval Concoctions As The Hereford Map.

Notes and News

Research Article

  • Canterbury Excavations, 1944–8

  • Sheppard Frere
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    02 January 2015, pp. 153-160

  • On 1 June 1942, occurred the German air-raid which destroyed about one-fifth of the old part of the City of Canterbury. It was soon realized that a unique opportunity existed of discovering something of the archaeological past of the city before rebuilding again concealed the wide areas now exposed.

    It was not only an opportunity but a duty ; for modern rebuilding, with its deep foundations, would be bound to destroy a very large part of whatever evidence had survived until the present. The Canterbury Excavations Committee was accordingly formed by the initiative of the local Archaeological Society, and excavations under a supervisor lent by the Ministry of Works began in August 1944, and have continued three times a year up to the present.

    Canterbury is one of the few Romano-British towns where there are good grounds for supposing a continuity of occupation through the Dark Ages. Thus though there was little to hint at any pre-Roman occupation, from the Roman, Saxon, and Medieval periods much was to be expected. Yet such a prediction has not turned out wholly true. On the one hand evidence for a pre-Roman Belgic settlement is accumulating ; but little of Saxon date has been found, and the circumstances of the excavations have limited the extent of the medieval discoveries.

    The town could not be investigated purely as an archaeological problem, digging on sites which seemed promising and following out the plan as on an open site like Silchester or Verulam. There was a double call. Rebuilding was ever imminent, and the first sites to be rebuilt were likely to be along the main street-frontages. Attention was necessarily devoted first to them.

Other

Notes and News

Research Article

  • Roman Coins found in Iceland

  • Haakon Shetelig
  • Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    02 January 2015, pp. 161-163

  • The State Antiquary of Iceland, Kristján Eldjárn, M.A., published in January this year a fine volume containing a report of his recent excavations of pagan graves, and other contributions to early Icelandic history, under the title of Gengidh á Reika, Akureyri, 1948. It is very important that we have got here reliable accounts of systematically explored Viking burials, with diagrams and photographs, all very well done, as Iceland had produced, till now, very little of similar publications. But really exciting is undeniably the news of the discovery of three Roman coins in Iceland.

    The place of discovery was at the farm Bragdhavellir, at the head of Hamarsfjord, in the district of Sudhur Mulasyssel, on the southeast coast of Iceland. In a small valley called Djupibotn the gales had partially denuded the ground leaving only the hard stony gravel subsoil. In this place the remains of two primitive houses came to light, certainly representing an ancient farm which had been deserted for long ages. A peasant of the vicinity Jón Sigfusson started searching the site for antiquities and collected a lot of such poor objects as are generally left in country dwellings of the early Middle-Ages, nails and fragments of iron, broken pots of soapstone, stone whorls, some teeth of horse and cow, bits of charcoal, etc. The only object of a more distinct character was a bead of variegated glass, reddish-brown with black and white, possibly dating from the Viking Period. Subsequently a number of the antiquities were sent to the National Museum in Reykjavik, including two Roman coins said to have been found on the same site and under same conditions as the other articles.

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Page 2 of 4