Durotriges Dig

Hello, we're the Durotriges Project 👋 If you're here for archaeology and updates on Iron Age and Roman Dorset / Britain, we hope you'll find something of interest Follow #Durotriges26 for this year's dig ⚠️ warning: may contain random references to #DoctorWho and #HypocaustGate

I say, I say, what's a Grecian urn?

Wonderful detail! We have the finds from Littlecote in our collections. :-)

Read the original research in Antiquity 🆓 'A sunken ship cargo of 500 bipyramidal bars? Implications for La Tène period iron production and trade along the Danube' - Peter Trebsche & Marion Berranger doi.org/10.15184/aqy... 10/10 🧵

Exploring The Piskey's Hall fogou. These underground structures are unique to Cornwall, eleven fogous remain and are all found west of Truro. Their purpose unknown, they were built in the late iron-age and into the Romano-British period.

We used to always do a short Mount Caburn walk each Christmas, starting in Glynde and ending in a pub in Lewes, as often as not the Lewes Arms, with snacks at the top of Caburn. I wonder if we'll do it this year, and if we do, whether I'll be up to it. It's been a while.

This mosaic of a Grecian urn being excavated at Milk Street London has had later building work cut through it. #MosaicMonday 🏺 www.romansociety.org/Imago/Image-...

Detail from a 4th century AD mosaic floor at Littlecote Roman villa in #Wiltshire showing pieces of tesserae cut from reused stamp-impressed box flue tile 📷 May 2015 #MosaicMonday

Seascape Mosaic (details) 3rd Century CE Aquincum - a Roman military & civilian site c. 41 - 409 CE. The mosaic contains a dolphin, fish & a duck. Aquincum Museum, Budapest, Hungary #MosaicMonday

For this #MosaicMonday, what's in a name? There is controversy over this late mosaic, as the museum label suggests that Doto results from a former restoration and that she is actually Ino. Whatever her name, she's delightful. 1/2

The exquisite mosaic floor panel depicting Spring or the personification of abundance or the good life. Roman, Imperial, C2nd AD. In the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art New York (inv. 1938 38.11.12). Photo is my own. #MosaicMonday

Niche - but I like it.

I say, I say, what's a Grecian urn?

Since it's #MosaicMonday, we can have a look at both sides of the shield, thanks to the Piazza Armerina hunt mosaic.

#RomanBritain 👀

In 1881, when Sir Edmund Antrobus (3rd Baronet) asked his architect JJ Cole to survey the condition of Stonehenge for him, Cole erected some scaffolding against stones of the outer circle so he could climb up and take photos.

#MosaicMonday Part of the Roman mosaic found at Hinton St. Mary, Dorset 4th Century AD. Now at the British Museum. #History #artwork #Archaeology

A gorgeous quartet to celebrate #MosaicMonday, beautifully preserved in the Neptune Building at the site of ancient Itálica, Seville. Would love to know what the central image of the bottom left mosaic was! 📹 us #Sevilla #archaeology #ancientbluesky #skystorians

#MosaicMonday on Tuesday. Here is the mosaic at the far end of the room in the corridor. The houses in Bulla Regia were built underground b/c of the extreme summer heat. My 📸. 1997. @chapps.bsky.social

John Castle as Postumus in "I, Claudius" was an even better bit of casting than I'd thought.

Seascape Mosaic (detail) 3rd Century CE Roman Aquincum. c. 41 - 409 CE. At times, capital city of Roman province of Pannonia Inferior & headquarters of Emperors. The mosaic came from the central hall of the bath in the northern wing of a palace. Aquincum Museum, Budapest, Hungary #MosaicMonday

Detail from the 4th century ‘Charioteer Mosaic’ featuring a victorious charioteer and quadriga (four horse chariot). The mosaic decorated one of the rooms at Rudston Roman Villa in East Yorkshire; now part of the collections at Hull and East Riding Museum. 📸 My own. #MosaicMonday #RomanBritain

Detail from a 4th century AD mosaic floor at Littlecote Roman villa in #Wiltshire showing pieces of tesserae cut from reused stamp-impressed box flue tile 📷 May 2015 #MosaicMonday

Duncan @theduncanmackay.bsky.social be like

Beautiful beads

❤️‍🩹 Request for donations, any amount will help! This project is with Operation Nightingale, a UK MOD initiative to assist the recovery of wounded, injured and sick military personnel and veterans by getting them involved in archaeological investigations. www.gofundme.com/f/build-a-ch...

A life-size #Roman marble head found in #Sussex now in the British Museum (1961,1103.1) Our report identifying it as Agrippa Postumus, youngest grandson and adopted heir of Augustus, is open access thanks to @universitypress.cambridge.org www.cambridge.org/core/journal... Happy #StoneHeadSunday

The 2 granite menhirs on the Ile-de-Sein (Finistère) of Les Causeurs (The Gossipers) are 2.8 and 2.3m tall. People with fever could be cured by leaving 9 pebbles wrapped in a handkerchief by them; anyone picking it up would catch the fever instead. #StandingStoneSunday.

Happy #StandingStoneSunday 🥳 The - ahem 🧐 - decorated stone pillar from Rhosmeirch, Ynys Mon/Anglesey, in private ownership but on display in Oriel Môn Thought to be Iron Age it is unusual for Wales. The central band has parallels with belts on European Iron Age statues 🤔 📷 My own

An image that appears in my head every time someone say "I don't like The Devil's Quoits. They aren't authentic, as they've been reconstructed." @martynjb.bsky.social @durotrigesdig.bsky.social I love that random ladder #StandingStoneSunday

Romano-Celtic stone head found at West Denton close to Hadrian’s Wall in 1969. Now in the Great North Museum, Newcastle. This one is clearly trouble at night, hence the restraining bars. #StoneHeadSunday

#StoneheadsSunday From the Roman Baths in Bath. A Romano Celtic version of the Three Graces?

And Eliza D'Oyly Burroughs is still remembered as a trailblazing archaeologist on the signboard to Taversoe Tuick chambered cairn 👍 Describing archaeology as "a pursuit I can cordially recommend" 😊 @trowelblazers.bsky.social #archaeology 🏺

A very cool site, made even better by the fact it was first excavated by this impressive (and fabulously-named) woman, Eliza D'Oyly Traill-Burroughs! Apparently she made very detailed records, so are absolutely vital for us today

A life-size #Roman marble head found in #Sussex now in the British Museum (1961,1103.1) Our report identifying it as Agrippa Postumus, youngest grandson and adopted heir of Augustus, is open access thanks to @universitypress.cambridge.org www.cambridge.org/core/journal... Happy #StoneHeadSunday

This ongoing badge-based pishing contest made me realise i really should get badges made for my next projects

The splendidly maintained remains of the stoking-area to a 3rd century #Roman bathhouse with main flue and relief arch together with ghostly attendant 👻 Preserved in a concrete bunker beneath the busy A1(M) at Welwyn #Hertfordshire 📷 January 2026 @welwynarchsoc.bsky.social #RomanSiteSaturday

How lucky are we? It's #StuffedSoldierSaturday! Mannequins used to be a museum favourite but, sadly, are falling from favour. Here's one of the best (sadly, now gone): the pre-Flavian #RomanCavalry eques at Corinium Museum in Cirencester (GBR). Disturbingly real if you saw it in the (horse) flesh.

Duncan @theduncanmackay.bsky.social be like

We need a bit of sunshine on this wet and stormy day, so here's the west wall and colonnade of Hadrian's Library in Athens. Didn't manage to get inside due to its eclectic opening hours, but you can see a lot from the street. ⌛2nd cent. CE. 📷 my own 2022 #RomanSiteSaturday #RomanArchaeology

This is such a cool site!

#RomanSiteSunday & for a place many people may not have come across, Almuñécar on the south coast of 🇪🇸 has quite a bit of Roman stuff to see, and one of the best examples of something that you'll find anywhere this should be a 🧵👇

The main road through Corbridge Roman Town in Northumberland. Originally constructed in the second century AD, the current surface dates to the fourth century AD. 📸 My own #RomanSiteSaturday #RomanBritain #Corbridge

A little beauty #Romans #Bathtime!

For #RomanSiteSaturday a walk through the remarkable Ravenglass bathhouse in Cumbria, on a lovely day last month.

The splendidly maintained remains of the stoking-area to a 3rd century #Roman bathhouse with main flue and relief arch together with ghostly attendant 👻 Preserved in a concrete bunker beneath the busy A1(M) at Welwyn #Hertfordshire 📷 January 2026 @welwynarchsoc.bsky.social #RomanSiteSaturday

Some gorgeous, decorated glass beads, one complete (18mm diameter) and three fragmentary, from Glastonbury Iron Age Lake Village Showy and eye-catching jewellery from over 2,000 years ago now in the Glastonbury Tribunal Museum #Somerset 📷 August 2026 #FindsFriday

The next online lecture for the Combined Hertfordshire Archaeological Societies is Kelly Clarke-Neish, "Reassessing Britain's 'last' Roman hoards". The results from this project are great, so come along. Tickets are free. 2nd Nov., 7.45pm, on zoom. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/2003826362...