bunn

What a terrifically cool object, and what a strange story!  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebra_sky_disk

Grrr at the metal detectorists who found a Bronze Age hoard of such importance, dug it up secretly (damaging the stuff with their spade) and sold it for cash, But hurray that it could be confirmed as from the Bronze Age,  (1600 BC!) and traced to the excavation location. 

I must have missed previous news stories about this, and oddly, I only came across it today because it was mentioned in a local Cornwall facebook group, because the original tin and gold used to make it in the first places came from Cornwall (and the copper came from Austria).  It's always interesting to see evidence of relatively long-distance trade in the very distant past. 

Twenty thousand words of careful knitting to make the Dumnonian bits of Eagle of the Ninth add up neatly to the existing proven archaeology, but they had to keep digging.

http://www.exeterexpressandecho.co.uk/Incredible-Roman-army-base-Exeter-crem-works/story-29186345-detail/story.html

But at least this is first century.  As long as they don't find anything second century, I can assume it was all abandoned.  *crosses fingers* 

Notes for The White Hare

The Eagle of the Ninth was published in 1953 - Rosemary Sutcliff's first Roman Britain book. She hadn't realised that there was no archaeology at the time that supported the idea that Exeter had a Roman occupation, and was delighted to find out, later on, that 'traces of the Second Legion were being dug up all over the city'.

Snag is, it turns out now that a lot more excavating has been done that the Second Legion occupation of Exeter was in the first century, not the second, when Eagle of the Ninth is set. It looks like the Second Legion campaigned successfully in the Southwest, then left. By the time Marcus was supposed to be posted to Isca, they had moved elsewhere, leaving their huge legionary fortress on the Red Mount largely empty, and Isca Dumnoniorum was a city served by an aqueduct (although exactly how developed it was is not entirely clear, because of medieval ground clearances which have removed a lot of the Roman bits).

( Read more...and more... and more! To the point of mild monomania, possibly. )

( In which I am Baffled by 4th Century Iron Things.  )

Skipping back a couple of centuries, I am intrigued by Hadrian's Frumentarii secret service, but wish to put a cherry on the top.  Would it be ridiculous to invent a Senatorial secret service working in parallel and sometimes at cross purposes with the Imperial one? 

In other news, I am unconvinced by rhubarb jam. It doesn't seem to be very... jammy. It is more like a pie filling in a pot.