Designer at the Baths

 I’m Christopher, a recent Textile Design Graduate of Bath School of Art and Design, and Ancient Textile Researcher who is a regular volunteer. During the past two years here at the Roman Baths, the building and its collection has provided a wonderful wealth of inspiration for my work.

 I am a keen student of both history and design, constantly looking for ways to combine the two subjects coherently; with the help of the Roman Baths I have successfully discovered my niche as an Ancient Textile Researcher. During the final year of my degree, the ‘Developing Textile design’ module gave me the opportunity to produce a collection of woven textile samples inspired by Roman mosaics.

 

Woven sample based on Mosaics

 Using a variety of different mosaics, to explore the geometric patterns of Roman mosaics, to develop a series of ‘colour and weave’ patterns to weave cloth samples. The mosaics include two from the Roman Baths collection, the geometric mosaic floor from Weymouth House, Bath and the mosaic from the Keynsham Roman Villa.

Exploring Geometric patterns: the Weymouth House mosaic, now in store

Through a series of observational drawing I broke down the mosaics into re-occurring patterns, developing them into repeatable weave blocks to weave the samples.

Observational drawing of the mosaic

 Preparing for my Graduate Show, I returned to the Roman Baths again, this time taking a series of photographs of the exterior of the building, while there was scaffolding all over the building to do maintenance of the Pump Room roof. I used the juxtaposition of the scaffolding over the windows and columns of the building, to create a series of tartans and checks. This was done by breaking them down into blocks of colour and lines created by the overlaying features of the building.

 

Breaking down images into colour and lines

Alongside the module I experimented with natural dyes, to discover the effect of dyeing natural coloured wool on the depth of colour produced during the dye process. Trying to keep to similar colours to what would have been available to the Romans; therefore I used Madder (Rubia Tinctorum), Weld (Reseda Luteola) and Indigo (Indigofera Tintoria).

NB. Even the chalk used in the dye process, is from the Baths (used in conservation, as sacrificial mortaring in the pavement around the Great bath.)

 

Natural Dye Experiments

The module concluded with the presentation of my work in the Textile Design Degree Show at Bath School of Art and Design in June 2014, where I created a gallery space, that combined aspects of research and design.

Final Degree Show

Samples from Final Degree Show

To see more of my textile design work and/or my ancient textile research, you can find me on my blog: Christopherleedesigns.wordpress.com

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Money Mondays: Septimius Severus coins

Beyond the most familiar use, can you imagine in which way can a coin be used? It can be used, for example, to illustrate history.

During the Roman Empire coins were a means of propaganda and celebration of dynasties as well. Roman Emperors had always used coins to promote themselves, representing their victories and their relatives also through symbolism.

For my Money Monday handling table I chose to use coins from the Beau Street Hoard to look at Lucius Septimius Severus  who achieved several victories during his reign. One of the most important ones was against the Parthian Empire, the archenemy of the Roman Empire for centuries. This achievement was so important for the Empire and for Severus' dynasty that, in order to celebrate this big happening, a monumental triumphal arch was built in the Roman Forum in Rome and several celebratory coins were minted all over the Empire. Some of these represented the Parthian victory and the greatness of Roman Empire containing some well-known symbols to deliver the message.

The Winged Victory

The Nike (the winged Victory) symbolized the good result in a war or campaign as well as some Goddesses such as Minerva which was the Goddess of Strategy.

Minerva, the Goddess of strategy

Severus was one of the Roman Emperors declared by the army. This element of his personal story is also present in the coinage of his age. The number of coins minted under his reign was increased because of some reforms to improve the military life. In fact, he promised to his loyal legions an increase in salary and a better quality of life. For this reason  a greater production of coins was needed. The symbolism related to the army was on several of these coins.

Eagle with open wings, symbol of Roman Army

Another key-element of coinage of Severus was his desire to make and promote his imperial dynasty as one of the most ancient ones. He celebrated his sons, Geta and Caracalla, and his second wife, Julia Domna.

Julia Domna, as a Roman woman and an Emperor’s wife, was represented as Roman Goddesses such as Venus, Juno, and Diana, but also as Pietas and Pudicitia, the deifications of important values such as chastity and respect for gods, nation and family.

Julia Domna as Pudicitia

Coins can be read as a book focusing on someone’s life, where the obverse is the title and the reverse is the chapter, condensed in one meaningful and allegoric image.

 Eufemia Iannetti (MA Leicester)

The Beau Street Hoard & The U3A: The Story So Far…

One of the activities in the Heritage Lottery funded Beau Street Hoard Project is photography of the hoard, by members of local U3A groups.

In order that the coins can be identified, they are first being accessioned in to the Roman Baths Museum collection. This includes individually packing each coin identified by the British Museum, and assigning it a unique number. As every one of the 17,577 coins in the hoard need an individual number, this is a somewhat daunting task, currently being carried out by a wide range of our collections volunteers (all 13 of them) and placements.

 All 775 coins from Bag 5 individually numbered and stored

Once individually packed and numbered, the next stage in the process is the photography and weighing of the coins. It is for this stage of work, which we have enlisted the help of U3A volunteers.

 U3A volunteers photographing and weighing the coins

In teams of three, they are photographing the coins; including the accession number, for identification purposes, the obverse (heads) side, and the reverse (tails) side. Along the way they are having, to get used to identifying the images on either side of the coin, so that each photograph accurately displays the coin.

Three images are taken for every coin

Once photographed, they are also weighing the coins, the recording of this information being crucial to identifying coins.

To date, 3229 coins have been photographed and weighed. This includes the entirety of Bags 5, 6, 7 and 8. The contents of these four bags are a good representation of coins from the hoard, denarii, radiates and debased radiates.

Bags 5 and 6 are the best examples of silver coins from the hoard, so they were nice coins to get the U3A started on, however, it wasn’t long before they had to move on to doing the considerably less shiny coins from Bags 7 and 8, and they are doing a sterling job in photography what are some rather nasty coins.

Some rather nasty coins from Bag 7

The rate at which the coins are being photographed and the speed at which the U3A volunteers are learning to recognise the reverses of coins has been unprecedented, and so work on Bag 2 has already started while we have other volunteers working through getting the rest of it numbered.

 Bag 2 all bagged up and waiting to be numbered

With work soon to recommence on getting the rest of the hoard identified at the British Museum, it hopefully won’t be long until we are working our way through the rest of the hoard too!

Verity

Matt’s Money Monday

Before the Event:

Money Mondays is one of many regular events that occur at the Roman Baths and are included in the wider Roman Baths Museum. This event particularly focuses on a different aspect of money each Monday.  

For my individual display, I chose to focus my attention to the Gods, Goddesses and Heroes who are depicted on Roman coinage. I realised I would be able to intertwine with The Beau Street Coin Hoard which the Roman Baths are currently cleaning (with the British Museum), recording, cataloguing, storing and displaying.

I wanted to exhibit selected deities found on a small number of the coins. This was done through an informative display and pairing activity. There was also opportunity to observe the coins through a magnifying glass.  

The display involved a lot of background preparation:

1.The selection of visually appropriate coins from the hoard.   

2.Creation of the correct display packaging for each coin.

3.Extensive background research, making sure all the information was relevant and accessible.

4. Writing the information displays in such a way that they had enough detailed information to educate people who were interested but they were easy to read for both English and Non-English speaking people.

5. The display had to be prepared in such a way as to be aesthetically pleasing as well as being informative and easy to understand.

6. Ensuring all the correct materials and equipment were at the right place at the right time in accordance with the event times.  

1

Discussing the detail on the coins

After the Event

The event was very successful, even though it was a fairly quiet evening, nearing 100 people came up to the display between 6pm - 8pm and actively engaged in conversation about the display and about the coin hoard and its current story.

It was a massive learning curve for me to see how displays and exhibitions are put together from the very beginning and just how much time and effort needs to go into them in order to make people engage and provide opportunities for them.

There were defiantly areas for improvement on the display, which were only realized once the display was setup (such as font/paragraph size and the grouping of texts and images). 

Examining the Roman Coin with Jupiter on the obverse.

Matthew Batchelor, Roman Society intern

Money Mondays: From Rome to the Tudors and back again

Working with the Beau Street Hoard means that Roman coins are never at a shortage. So when I was asked to put together a display and activity for Money Mondays I decided to expand the time range up to the time of Elizabeth I, the last in the Tudor dynasty.

Of course coins from the Beau St Hoard still made an appearance and alongside the coins of Hadrian, Severus Alexander and Gordian III were coins of Henry I, Henry II, Henry VIII and as mentioned, Elizabeth I. I have always had an interest in Middle Age and Tudor history and this was the perfect opportunity for me to find out more about its coinage, mints and moneyers.

In regards to the activity I chose to do a matching exercise, matching the coin to a description of its ruling Emperor, King or Queen, such as facts and clues to their appearance, character or details of coin production at the time.

I provided a label for each coin, describing its obverse and reverse along with its legend and production date if applicable. As a final activity I collected images of each of the 7 leaders, with the idea to match the coin to its leader using the coin labels and descriptions.

Money Monday table with the coins and their labels

                                

The display did prove quite popular; a good few people took a keen interest to the coins, picking them up and examining then intently and listening while we fed them information about the hoard as well. I was assisted by Katie who was able to answer the questions I couldn’t and both of us put together were able to talk our way around it in the end! It was a great fun to put together and host, and I gained new knowledge in doing so and hope that those who took an interest did to.  I don’t think there could have been a better place to have done it either - the Great Bath of an evening provides the best backdrop!

Myself and Katie alongside the Great Bath

                                

Alice

Emma's Placement at the Romans Baths!

May drew to a close, and with that my placement here at the Roman Baths also did. I honestly can’t believe that it’s been 9 months since I began working here with the collections team. I’ve had so many experiences and learning curbs and memories that will remain with me. I can’t list them all in this post so I’m going to list my top four.

Toga Party – one of the volunteers on the collections team hosted her birthday at the roman baths in the form of a toga party. The experience was beyond surreal, walking around the site dressed in full roman garb whilst dancing to 70s disco in the ticket hall that had been transformed into a club complete with flashing lights with the ticket station acting as a bar for the evening! We danced to night away, with me even having to remove my authentic Roman lady’s veil or palla to keep cool.

Me and Caroline dressed as Romans with the water organ

Museums at night –  On the night of Party in the City the Roman Baths opened up to the public till late and had several musical acts such as a swing band around the Great Bath, a lyre player by the temple pediment and our own personal pride -  a replica of a roman water organ built by the wonderful Richard Ellam. A few of us dressed up as Romans and helped with the playing of the organ and talking to the public about it. The event was so much fun and it felt really good to have followed the creation of the organ through from the conception of the idea to the construction and then its premiere to the public.

Me Looking at the collection

Handling collection – Throughout this placement, the fact that I’ve had the chance to see many objects from the Roman Baths collection not on display and be able view them up close is a privilege not lost on me. I can’t believe how lucky I am! To name one particular piece: A real Viking sword!!

Just a few of the lovely people I worked with!

People – Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz saying that she’ll miss Scarecrow most of all, the thing I’ll miss most about my time here will be the people I’ve worked with who were all so welcoming when I began and really came be good friends now I’m leaving. But it’s not goodbye but more of a “see you later”!

With that I’ll wrap this up! Thank you to anyone who read any of my blog posts! I’ve loved writing them!

Emma

Sorry for late posting Emma! our excuse is more of our computers refusing to work with our blog!Verity & Susan

What are we doing with all those coins?

What are we doing with all those coins?

Hello!  My name is Katie and I’m the new Beau Street Hoard Project Officer.  I’ve had a delightful time the last two weeks getting to know about the project and meeting all the friendly and knowledgeable staff and volunteers involved.  I feel most welcome.  I love the Roman Baths and been volunteering here for a while.  I can’t believe my luck to be working here!

Now, my title is Project Officer, but it should probably really be PROJECTS Officer; to celebrate the discovery and acquisition of the Hoard the Roman Baths are running 33 in projects total!  We are running public events like talks, roadshows, and drop-in conservation evenings, providing training for volunteers, students and staff, organising a 2 day conference, having Brownie sleepovers, publishing two books, working with local schools – the list goes on!

Speaking of events, we had our first conservation evening last Saturday here at the Roman Baths.  It was really interesting meeting the conservators from the British Museum and learning about the work they are doing conserving all those 17,577 Roman coins. They showed our visitors (and me) what takes to turn a solid dirty fused lump into thousands of lovely shiny separate coins.

One part of the corroded mass of Roman coins that made up the Beau Street Hoard.  How do you think the conservators dealt with it?

They’ll be back again on 28^th October as part of Heritage Open Week, so if you missed last Saturday’s event, do try and come in October!

For the evening I put together a display on all the different projects were doing with the Beau Street Hoard.  It’s huge! I’ve got a lot of work to do!  And I’m really looking forward to it. 

You can find out more about Beau Street Hoard activities through our website www.romanbaths.co.uk, or follow us on Twitter or Facebook.

 Me with my display.

Katie Scaife 

The Hippo Camp!

The Beau Street Hoard features coins with all sorts of pictures on the back, including gods and goddesses, emperors and temples, and many different kinds of animals, both real and mythical. One of these mythical animals is the Hippocamp.

The Hippocamp is half-horse and half-fish, almost like an equine mermaid! The Roman god of the sea, Neptune, is often shown using Hippocampi to pull his chariot. We have a mosaic of a Hippocamp in the museum.

 

The Hippocamp Mosaic

 “Hippocamp” is actually a Greek word. “Hippo” means horse and “Kampos” means sea monster. We often translate it as “sea-horse”.  The Etruscans (a pre-Roman civilisation in Italy) had lots of mythical animals that were half-fish, including aigikampoi (fish-tailed goats), leokampoi (fish-tailed lions), taurokampoi (fish-tailed bulls) and pardalokampoi (fish-tailed leopards).

Of course, of all the animals featured on the coins, our favourite is the Hippo! This is why the mascot for the Heritage Lottery Funded Beau Street Hoard Project is Beau the Hippo. So we decided to create our own version of a Hippo Camp.

 

The Hippo-Camp - L-R: Phil, Gordo and Beau

As you can see, Beau and his friends, Phil and Gordo (named after Philip I and Gordian III, the most represented Emperors in the Hoard) are having a lovely time at the Hippo-Camp. This picture was drawn by our volunteer artist-extraordinaire. It looked like so much fun that even our stuffed animal Beau wanted a go!

 

The Re-Enacted Hippo-Camp (with Beau)

Roman Cures and Concoctions!

The Romans adopted the majority of their medical teachings and practices from the Greeks. In fact, the most respected and sought after doctors that practiced in the Roman Empire were Greek - for example, Hippocrates and Galen.

Even so, the Roman's distrusted Greek Doctors! Roman writer, Pliny even wrote that he'd heard that all Greek doctors swore an oath to kill all foreigners - definitely a misunderstanding of the Hippocratic oath (a pledge still taken by today's Doctors and thought to have been written by Hippocrates).

Me with my Roman Medicine Table for NSEW 2014!

Speaking of Hippocrates, although commended though the ages and given the nickname 'father of western medicine', he did have a couple of strange practices including tasting his patient's urine and earwax to diagnose their illness.

Another way to find out what was wrong with you was to visit one of the temples dedicated to the God of Healing, Asclepius. These temples became popular around the year 300 BC  and involved patients spending the night sleeping on the temple floor with snakes crawling around between them. The snakes were meant to inspire dreams in the unwell which would reveal how they could be cured.

Statue of Asclepius, exhibited in the Museum of Epidaurus Theatre.

Once the patient had been diagnosed, if they had survived the terror of the snake pit or the embarrassment of seeing the doctor drink your wee, then came the treatment.

Galen believed in the curative power of opposites. So, if you had a fever, he'd give you a cucumber and if you had a cold he'd prescribe hot pepper! I personally think I'll stick to the antibiotics!

Other cures included...

• Drinking gladiator's blood to cure epilepsy.
• Eating goat dung soup if you had a headache.
• Applying boiled liver to sore eyes.

Even though it may seem like the Romans' medical practices were crazy, some of their ideas were pretty advanced!

My own efforts in making a herb parcel! Romans dropped these in their baths and cooking pots!

They had a vast knowledge of herbs and their healing properties - for example they knew that fennel aided digestion and that mint had antiseptic properties. 

They were also aware of being able to catch diseases through drinking unclean water, Vitruvius, a Roman architect, wrote: 

"We must take great care in searching for springs and, in selecting them, keeping in mind the health of the people."

So, next time you're stuck in bed with a cold, be thankful you're not a Roman!

Emma

Meet Beau the Hippo!

Beau the hippo is our mascot for our Heritage Lottery Funded Beau Street Hoard Project.  But why a hippo?

Beau the hippo announcing the latest news of the Beau Street Hoard

When we saw the first coins from the Beau Street hoard, they were all uncleaned and some of them were quite corroded. Sifting through them, we were delighted to see a hippo, albeit a rather miserable looking one, on one of the reverses.

one of  the hippos on the coins

We fell in love with him and realised that a hippo, which is happiest wallowing in the mud and water, was appropriate for a Bath coin, having been excavated in the mud, and from Bath famous for its spring water.

The coin that features the hippo was issued by the Emperor Philip I in 248 AD. This year was the 1000^th anniversary of what the Romans considered to be the founding of Rome by Romulus.  As part of the anniversary celebrations many wild animals were transported to Rome to be killed in gladiatorial and wild beast hunts. Other animals represented on his coins include antelopes, wolves and lions. But the hippo coins actually have his wife, Otacilia’s head on the obverses; perhaps she liked the hippos best.

So with Beau we are remembering all the animals that died in the name of “entertainment”.

Beau dressed as a Roman soldier

Look out for Beau and some of his cousins at our Beau Street Hoard events over the next 15 months!  And if you meet a hippo be sure to take a photo and share it with us on Facebook!

A delft hippo giving scale to some of the coins from Bag 7 of the Hoard

To find out more about Beau and all our coin related events and activities follow us BeauStHoard on Flickr, Twitter: and Facebook

Susan

Latest Beau Street Hoard News

 Eureka! Finally our hard work has been rewarded. 

The good news from the Heritage Lottery Fund is that our Beau Street Hoard Project has been successful in attracting £372,500 of lottery funding. 

After cracking open the ginger beer (should have been ‘mulsum’, an alcoholic Roman tipple, but we were officially at work!), we had to get down to the serious business of buying the hoard. Stephen Clews, Manager of The Roman Baths and the project mastermind, quickly got on the phone to The Treasure Valuation Committee to get a receipt for the purchase of the coins to present to our grant giving bodies – The Heritage Lottery Fund, The Victoria and Albert Museum’s Purchase Fund and The Headley Trust. This enabled us to draw down our grants to buy the hoard.

 

Some of the coins from the hoard

   

After the coins had been purchased, we publicised the good news, far and wide. Our Communications and Media Officer issued a press release and the phone went red hot with requests for interviews, sound-bites and photo shoots. As the coins were discovered in central Bath, the story has elicited a lot of interest locally, but the story also captured the imagination of national and international press and media. Luckily, Stephen is a very eloquent and enthusiastic speaker, also not at all fazed by the paparazzi’s flashing bulbs and requests to ‘look this way please, Mr Clews’!

This application is the culmination of over a year’s worth of activity, with input from many people including colleagues, partners, consultees, volunteers and funders. Now we’ve been awarded the grant we will embark on our exciting community engagement activities, working with many local groups including The Girl Guide Association, the U3A (University of the Third Age), local school children, their parents and teachers, students and staff from Bath Spa University and Wiltshire College, Bath Festivals, The Genesis Trust, The Natural Theatre Company and others.

This month marks the official launch of the Beau Street Hoard community engagement programme which will run until July 2015, with many opportunities to get involved with exciting, coin-related events, including hands-on coin activities, designed to encourage people’s understanding and interest in archaeology and local heritage, drop-in workshops, mobile roadshows in locations across Bath and North East Somerset and beyond, new educational resources for young visitors, long-term projects with community partners and a range of public talks, presentations and symposia. There is something to interest everyone, from the casual visitor to the coin expert. One of the first events is ‘Curious Coins’, the first of many drop-in events at The Roman Baths, on 14 April (10am-1pm & 2pm-4pm) where visitors can investigate Roman coins and children can create a coin to take home.

For up to date details of all Beau Street Hoard events visit the Roman Baths website  or follow us on Twitter  flickr and Facebook

  

Saira – Beau Street Hoard Project Officer

Science Week 2014: Amazing Arches!

Roman arches don’t seem like they should be particularly scientific. Stacking blocks into an arch isn’t something that most people think of as “Roman science”. In truth, building Roman arches required some serious physics!

               

The first thing to know about Roman arch science is that the Romans built two different of arches; voussoir and corbel. Voussoir arches are made up of lots of individual blocks of stone, the voussoirs, specifically shaped to be widest at the top. These are arranged into a semicircle, with some sort of solid support at either end, to make the well-known “Roman arch” shape seen in many places around the Baths. 

A voussior arch.

 A corbel arch is much simpler; it’s just two pieces of stone, one resting on the other, positioned into a triangular arch. 

A corbel arch.

But how did arches work, and why were they important to the Romans? The reasons are to do with how the blocks interact with each other, and how that made them important architectural supports. In a voussoir arch, each voussoir shares force with its neighbours. If force is put on the arch, each voussoir leans into the next voussoir down the arch. Therefore, each voussoir is supporting its neighbour on one side, and being supported by its neighbour on the other. This means that as long as the voussoirs are mortared to prevent them falling out of the arch and there is support independent of the arch at each end, the arch will hold much more weight than its size would suggest.   

The physics of a voussoir arch.

In a corbel arch, the force is also divided, but a corbel arch holds because it is not divided equally. The supporting piece takes most of the force, preventing the part that makes the actual arch from being overburdened. Therefore, as long as the supporting part is strong enough, the arch holds. 

The physics of a corbel arch.

However, the more force you want on a corbel arch, the larger a supporting part you need, and the taller the arch is. This makes it more space-efficient to use voussoir arches, and as a result they are more common in Roman architecture.

All of this shows that Roman arches were very scientific constructions, despite appearing very simple!