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An Assemblage of Palaeolithic Hand-Axes from the Roman Religious Complex at Ivy Chimneys, Witham, Essex

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 April 2011

Robin Turner  and
J. J. Wymer
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Extract

This paper describes the context and nature of an assemblage of forty-four Palaeolithic hand-axes from a Roman religious site at Witham, Essex. The hand-axes are considered to have been derived from several sources, and it is suggested that the Romano-British occupants of the site deliberately selected them for their shape and placed them in the bottom of two large man-made depressions. In the light of stone axe finds on continental temple sites, and of classical Roman texts and traditions, the possibility arises that the Witham finds may have represented ‘thunderbolts’ in the worship of Jupiter or a local Celtic equivalent.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 67 , Issue 1 , March 1987 , pp. 43 - 60
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1987

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References

Notes

1 O.S. grid reference TL 811136. The excavations were directed by Robin Turner for Essex County Council and the Department of the Environment. The authors would like to thank Hazel Martingell and Margaret Tremayne, who illustrated the flints, and Roger Massey-Ryan and Margaret Matthews who prepared figs. 1 and 2. We are grateful to Martin Henig who kindly read and commented on the paper.

2 See Turner, R., Ivy Chimneys, Witham: An Interim Report, Essex County Counc. Occ. Pap. 2 (Chelmsford, 1982)Google Scholar; and id., Excavations of an Iron Age Settlement and Roman Religious Complex at Ivy Chimneys, Witham, Essex, 1978-83, E. Anglian Arch, (forthcoming).

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38 A small fragment of fossil fish scales in a red-brown mudstone, possibly a glacial erratic.

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42 Blinkenberg, C., The Thunderweapon in Religion and Folklore; a Study in Comparative Archaeology (Cambridge, 1911).Google Scholar See also Bonner, C., Studies in Magical Amulets, Chiefly Graeco-Roman (Univ. Michigan, 1950)Google Scholar, esp. note 33 concerning a celt with Zeus inscription.

43 Green, M. J., ‘Tanarus, Taranis and the Chester Altar’, J. Chester Arch. Soc. lxv (1982), 37–44Google Scholar; ead., ‘Jupiter, Taranis and the solar wheel’, in Henig, M. and King, A. (eds.), Pagan Gods and Shrines of the Roman Empire, Oxford Univ. Comm. Arch. Monograph ser. 8 (Oxford, 1986), 65–75Google Scholar.

44 Bauchhenss, G. and Noelke, P., Die Iupitersäulen in den germanischen Provinzen (Köln, 1981)Google Scholar.

45 Hertlein, F., Die Jupitergigantensäulen (Stuttgart, 1910), 9Google Scholar.

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47 Bauchhenss, and Noelke, , op. cit. (note 44)Google Scholar.

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49 Bauchhenss, G., Iupitergigantensäulen (Stuttgart, 1976), pl. 1Google Scholar.

50 Espérandieu, E., Recueil Général des Bas Reliefs de la Gaule romaine (Paris, 1907-1966), 4425Google Scholar.

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52 Neal, D. S., ‘A sanctuary at Wood End Lane, Hemel Hempstead’, Britannia, xv (1984), 205–6Google Scholar; the religious use of the site is dated to the second century A.D.