More information : Roman Temple (GS) (Site of) (SY 69888207) (1)
A resume of previous reports, many of them conflicting, can be given as follows:-
In 1842 Mr Medhurst excavated the site and made no adequate plans or report but found a square building with an entrance either on the south or east side. In the South-East corner and partly underlying the main wall was a ceremonial pit at the bottom of
which were 2 Roman urns, an iron spearhead, a broad sword, an iron knife and a steelyard and above them were bones of birds. The only dateable coin was of Theodosius (AD 379-395). The entire interior of the building was excavated and steps leading
up to the entrance were found also the pavement of a portico
or colonnade and the foundations of 4 columns. Outside this was a courtyard surrounded by a wall 5 ft thick enclosing an area
variously given as 100 and 200 ft square. Inside the enclosure were found many coins and bones and horns mainly of young bulls. The conclusion was reached that it was a temple. (2-8)
The site was again excavated in 1931-32 by Col Drew and Mr Prideaux. No definite conclusion could be reached as the previous excavations had destroyed stratification but it was almost certainly a Romano-Celtic temple though no verandah was found. The square building had internal sides of 22 ft and walls with a maximum foundation width of 9'6" were uncovered. No trace of tesserae was found and it was concluded that it probably had a concrete floor. Finds included tegulae, imbrices, early coarse ware, Samian and New Forest ware, coins etc. (2). The total number of coins found on the site in recent years is 177 Roman and one British. "Sixty one of the coins can be attributed to 388-95 AD. The coins support Col Drew's suggestion that the site is a Romano-Celtic temple originally erected in the earlier Roman period". It is not impossible that the building was used in the
late 4th century as a signal station.
The British coin is of Atrebatic type in copper. Evans type G:5/6. (4). (Type ascribed to the Durotriges by Allen, Belgic Dynasties. Arch XC 1944 p36) (8)
Situated slightly below the east of the brow of Jordan Hill
and under the care of DOE.
The foundations of the original rectangular building of stone
are visible as a single wall up to 0.3m above ground level and
1.8 wide along the north and east sides. The course of the
remaining sides has been laid out with flat stones set on edge upon intermittently visible foundations of the original building.
The internal dimensions of the rectangle are 6.8m square. The interior and exterior have been laid out with lawns. There is
no visible sign of an entrance. As a signal station site, a
commanding view may be obtained on all sides except the west which is blocked by the brow of the hill. (9)
An oblong shaft, 4ft by 3ft and 12ft deep, lay within the SE
angle largely under the line of the wall footings. It was lined
with roofing slabs and filled with ash and charcoal alternating
with roofing tiles, between each of which were bones of a
single bird and a small brass coin. At the bottom a stone cist
with 2 urns was found with various metal objects associated with it, a sword, a spear-head and a knife etc. A similar cist
half way down enclosed urns, a sword and a spear-head. One coin was identified as of Theodosius 1 (379-95). The condition of the others was such that they could not be identified.
The date and purpose of the Jordan Hill building are uncertain. It is usually regarded as a temple, and the ritual shaft supports
this ascription, although use as a signal station has been
suggested (a). The coins and pottery point to 4th or 5th century
occupation, although earlier construction connot be ruled out.
"Although it appears likely that the Theodosian shaft predated
the building, or was a foundation deposit, their relationship
cannot now be established. (10)
Ritual well. There were 16 repetitions of bird skeletons and
coins between tiles from the top to the bottom of the well.
Birds represented were raven, crow, buzzard and starling, all
prognostic birds according to Celtic belief. (11)
SY 69898207. Temple as described; the foundations well preserved.
Resurveyed at 1:1250 on MSD. (12)
1. Roman cemetery [65] (site of)
2. Col. Drew thinks this site was probably 1/4 mile West of where marked.
3. [SY 698823] In Nov 1845 MR. MEDHURST found a cemetery where he obtained 40-50 urns and samian pottery. Some are in the DORSET COUNTY MUSEUM and some in the BM.
The site is 300 yards North of the shaft in the Temple [Dorset 53 NE 3] (1)
[SY 69958203] The site of the cemetery is about 100 yds on the South East side of the temple. It appeared to be a parallelogram bounded on each side by a low thick stone wall giving it slightly the appearance of a raised volume and extending over an area of 500ft. At about 2ft depth a cist was found containing a skeleton with nails and decayed wood - evidently a coffin, the site produced several inhumations, burnt bones and animal bones, urns and "alters". In the same field a coin hoard was found in 1812 [Dorset 53 NE 7] (2)
[SY 698823] This site is about 300 yards from the temple "on
the Northern slope of the hill though the intervening space is
also part of the same extensive Roman Cemetery. There were a few personal ornaments or weapons with the skeletons - 3 bronze fibulae' combs, iron arrowheads, styli, and iron sword, bone
spearhead, a fragment of Purbeck marble showing a mould for casting a dagger and the foot of a table or chair of Kimmeridge shale. (3)
The cemetery began to be used about 1 AD-Iron Age c and continued to be used during the Roman occupations. The burials were clearly inhumations and not cremations. Some 80 skeletons were found and only part of the cemetery was excavated. Some of the bead rim pottery is in the DORSET COUNTY MUSEUM. (4)
[The conflicting evidence of site is based upon the original
MEDHURST excavation of 1845]
4. In the Ro. cemetery on JORDAN HILL was found a slab lying near a skeleton & on it a handled cup of blackware. Also a
SAMIAN cup around which were five small bowls of blockware with a piece of KIMMERIDGE shale, smooth & bearing linear & semi-circular tracings. An elegant bowl of KIMMERIDGE shale was found by Medhurst in 1845
5. [SY 6982] No evidence was obtained during field investigation to confirm any of the sitings given in TS 2 & 3. The area is under
pasture & crop & there were no surface finds. The area indicated includes the sites given in T S 1,2 & 3.
The Cemetery, perhaps pre-Roman in origin, lay N. and N.E. and extended at least 300 yds. over an area where Roman material occurs on the surface. The most reliable account is probably
that of T. W. Wake Smart in Warne's Ancient Dorset. About 80
inhumation burials of adults and children were found in an area of about one acre, variously orientated and often flexed, and
sometimes in groups of up to six individuals. Some were in stone cists and one grave was paved with chalk tesserae; nails indicated that some had been in wooden coffins. Low drystone walls, one of crescent-shape 21 ft. long, apparently demarcated burial plots and sometimes had burials in their structure (Shipp (in Hutchins) states that the cemetery was within a parallelogram 500 ft. across with a low thick wall). Near the burials were (i) several floors of white clay, one seemingly of 18 ft. by 12 ft. with stone walls; (ii) clay-lined hollows containing ashes, animal bones and sherds, several apparently provided with stone-lined drains; (iii) two stone cists containing burnt shale and calcined animal bones; (iv) several stone piles on which rested animal bones or vessels containing them. Some burials had single pots or groups; in one group of nine vessels, three (a samian dish, a black ware imitation of samian form 37, and a handled cup of black ware) stood on an engraved oblong plaque or tray of shale placed at the shoulder, with five black ware bowls ranged around it, and a bottle of yellowish ware at the knees. Another imitation of samian form 37 was made of shale. Some 80 vessels survive (mostly in D.C.M. and B.M.) out of perhaps 125 listed as from Jordan Hill in sale catalogues of the Medhurst Collection (Sotheby's, 1 July 1879; C.T.Jefferies, Bristol, 1893), including many Durotrigian jars, bowls and handled mugs, some samian ware, imitation samian in black fabrics, a Gallo-Belgic terra rubra bowl and terra nigra platters, and two lead-glazed beakers. Although sherds of late Romano-British ware were found, most of the whole vessels may be attributed to the cemetery and assigned to the second half of the 1st century A.D., with some few of the 2nd century or later. A bronze armlet, finger-rings and sandal-nails accompanied burials, also iron arrowheads, an iron sword, styli, and bone weaving-combs.
Other objects from the cemetery area, not necessarily with burials and in some cases suggesting domestic or industrial occupation, included iron spear-heads, saddle and rotary quern-stones,
chert and flint balls, a shale armlet and lathe-turned armlet
cores, a Durotrigian silver coin and three of the 3rd and 4th
centuries, sherds including painted ware of New Forest type, and
many pieces of angular supports resembling salt-boiling
'briquetage'. Less precisely attributed objects from Jordan
Hill are four more whole or partial shale plaques or trays with
engraved decoration, a carved shale slab, a shale tablet with
a stylized lion in relief from a site yielding bronze coins and
sherds, Iron Age swan-necked and ring-headed pins (Arch. J. XCI (1934), 288-9), La Tene I and III and Roman brooches, and a bronze Roman mirror-handle (Archaeologia Cambrensis C (1949), 32).
Jordan Hill Romano-Celtic temple and associated remains is situated on the South Dorset Downs on a south-facing chalk ridge overlooking Weymouth Bay to the South. The earliest feature on the site is thought to have been a large pit or shaft, 1.2 metres by 0.9 metres and 3.65 metres deep. The sides were lined by roofing slabs set in clay and the fill consisted of 16 layers of ash and charcoal. Between the layers were pairs of roofing slabs, each with the remains of a bird (including buzzard, raven, starling and crow) and a bronze coin. There were also two cists within the fill, which held a range of artefacts. Based on the finds, the shaft is thought to have been constructed in the early Roman period (AD 69-79) and sealed during the Theodosian period (AD 379-395). Overlying the shaft was a structure, interpreted as the cella of a Roman-Celtic Temple, with stone footings 6.8 metre square and an entrance to the south. A thin concrete surface on the external sides is thought to have been the remains of a pavement for a colonnade or portico. A limestone base and Purbeck marble Tuscan capital were also found. An 84 metre square outer enclosure with stone walls is thought to have surrounded the site and contained animal bones, numerous bull horns, pottery and hundreds of coins from Iron-Age to Roman in date. It has also been suggested that the site served as a late 4th century signal station. The site is associated with a late Iron Age-Roman cemetery located about 90 metres to the south east. (13)
Additional reference noting possible ritual deposition of the remains of birds in a well at Jordan Hill. (14)
English Heritage source including a brief accessible overview of Jordan Hill Roman temple for visitors. (15) |