Issue no 52, April 2000

A rare early Byzantine jewel has been found on the site of a remote farmstead in North Wales, adding to the growing evidence for the survival of Roman culture in western Britain in the post-Roman period. The jewel, a garnet inscribed with a scorpion, was made in the eastern Mediterranean in about the 6th-7th centuries AD.

The discovery shows, alongside evidence from other sites, that the `independent' western British kingdoms maintained trading links with the Eastern Roman Empire, at a time when much of eastern Britain had fallen under Anglo-Saxon control. Imported Mediterranean goods of this date, such as pottery, have now been excavated at a handful of sites including the royal settlement at Tintagel in Cornwall.

The Government has decided not to ratify two international conventions designed to combat the worldwide trade in looted and stolen antiquities. London is thought to be a major centre of this illicit trade.

However in a Parliamentary Written Answer given in February, Culture Secretary Chris Smith confirmed the Government's intention to find an alternative solution that would be compatible with Britain's legal system.

Evidence that hunter-gatherers wore woven clothing, and used baskets, nets and other loom-made textiles some 27,000 years ago has been found in central and western Europe.

The evidence, found by Olga Soffer of the University of Illinois, consists of textile impressions on about 90 fragments of clay from a number of well-dated sites in the Czech Republic, including Dolni Vestonice and Tavlov. The impressions represent by far the world's oldest evidence of weaving yet found. Previously, it was thought weaving was invented by the first settled farmers only 10,000-5,000 years ago.

Detailed examination of the impressions has revealed a huge variety of fine weaving techniques, including open and closed twines and plain weave, basketry and nets. According to Dr Soffer, twining can be done by hand but plain weave requires a loom.

Some of the impressions may have been created accidentally - for example, by sitting on a freshly-laid clay floor, or leaning against a wet wattle-and-daub wall. Wet clay may also have been carried in bags. `Other impressions may have been caused by deliberate action, such as lining a basket with clay to make it airtight,' Dr Soffer said.

Following the clay-impression discoveries, a number of contemporary `Venus' figurines were examined from sites across central and western Europe. Many were found to be wearing clothing including basket hats and caps, bandeaus - straps of cloth wrapped around the body above the breast - and belts worn at the waist or low-slung on the hips, some with string skirts attached. `These figurines have been studied for decades but no-one has paid any attention before to the clothing,' Dr Soffer said.

Excavations in a Cheshire cave have shed light on the life and demise of an 18th century hermit, whose contemplative existence was rudely interrupted in the 1760s when his landlord redeveloped his estates.

An anonymous pamphlet of 1809 tells how John Harris renounced his worldly goods on the death of his parents to live the life of a hermit `in dens and caves in the mountains'. For some two decades he occupied a cave in the grounds of Carden Park, nine miles south of Chester, before moving on in his 50s, for reasons unspecified, to caves elsewhere. According to the pamphlet, he was discovered aged 99 in 1809, wild and hairy - `the frightfulest figure ever seen'.

Recently, the Carden cave was identified when the Carden Park estate was redeveloped as a golf course. Subsequent excavations, thought to be the first ever undertaken in a hermit's cave, confirmed that it was inhabited in the middle years of the 18th century.

The life of a hermit may have been ascetic but, to judge by the Carden excavations, it may not have been wholly uncomfortable. For a start, the sandstone cave was converted into a kind of residence, its interior enlarged by chiselling into a rectangular space with a slightly arched ceiling and alcoves in the walls, perhaps for storage. Slots in the floor suggest a partition.

Moreover, horizontal slots in the walls and postholes in the forecourt show that the cave once had a frontage. A small free-standing outbuilding stood a short way from the cave-mouth. The hermitage probably resembled a conventional house set into the cliff.

Finds date the conversion to the right period. They include sherds of green glass from drinking vessels, pieces of brown and green-glazed tableware and numerous broken clay pipes. The pottery went out of use in the 1750s or 60s, and was found mixed with stone chippings - probably rubble from the conversion - used to level the forecourt to build the frontage.

Pottery also lay on the surface of the forecourt, perhaps broken at the time of John Harris's final clearance of the cave. It was sealed by a layer of earth associated with the landscaping work that followed his departure.

According to the excavators, Keith Matthews of Chester Archaeology and Anthony Sinclair of Liverpool University, the hermit's exit was prompted by William Leche, who inherited Carden from his father John in 1765. Documentary sources reveal that William was an ambitious and ruthless man, who terminated tenancy agreements, rationalised his holdings and eventually trebled the estate income.

But first, in the 1760s or 70s, he created a `pleasure garden' - a meandering walk designed to show off his estate to best advantage. As part of the excavation project, the walk was traced, and was found to contain a series of stopping places and benches sited to provide impressive views.

And the best view of all? - the one that took in Carden Hall, neighbouring stately homes, and the skyline of Chester where John Leche was Sheriff? Unfortunately this was from John Harris's outbuilding. `A hermit, wild and hairy, would clearly have had to go,' Mr Matthews said. It is unclear where John Harris spent the rest of his days.

Remains of one of medieval London's most important monasteries have been discovered less than a foot below street level, north-west of the City.

The Tudor gateway of the priory of the Knights of St John of Jerusalem still stands, but the rest of the buildings disappeared soon after the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1540. Now a section of stone wall, thought to have belonged to the priory's Great Barn, has been found standing up to 2m high, incorporated into later cellars. It lay under Briset St in Clerkenwell, named after Jorden de Briset, the Norman knight who founded the priory.

Also from the monastery, on a second site, were fragments of high-quality stone mouldings, including parts of two fireplaces. One was decorated with a Tudor Rose. In addition, excavators found a lead seal of Pope Innocent III (1196-1214), which must have been issued within a few years of the foundation of the monastery in 1185.

New excavations at Guildhall in the City of London suggest that substantial Roman building remains may have survived in London as late as the 13th century.

Some twelve years ago archaeologists discovered a Roman amphitheatre directly beneath the Guildhall complex, medieval London's most important civic building.

However, why the two buildings shared the same footprint was unclear.

New work, however, at the entrance to Guildhall Yard has exposed, for the first time, remains of the great gatehouse that stood there in the heyday of the Guildhall precinct in the 15th century. The gatehouse appears to have been built in the 13th century directly over the southern entrance to the Roman amphitheatre.

According to excavators from the Museum of London Archaeology Service, this raises the possibility that enough of the Roman structure survived to influence the siting not only of the gatehouse and Guildhall itself, but also of the church of St Lawrence Jewry whose strange alignment may shadow the elliptical form of the amphitheatre beneath.

Also uncovered were the gravel and cobbled surfaces of the road that led north to Guildhall from the 11th century to after the Great Fire of 1666.