The Romans in Britain - a midweek symposium in York

Britain was part of the Roman empire for 367 years yet aside from what is known from Caesar’s account of the initial invasion in his Commentaries on the Gallic War, Roman historians rarely mention Britannia in detail. Most of our knowledge of Roman Britain, whether from a native or colonial perspective, is derived from physical monuments and the fruits of archaeological investigations over many decades. Roman archaeology in Britain is blossoming at present, in part as a result of increases in developer-funded archaeology, while some significant coin hoards and objects unearthed by metal detectorists in recent years have also presented fresh insight and inquiry.

The latest in our highly successful series of residential symposia brings together leading archaeologists and classicists for a series of 40-minute talks. They will evaluate traditional narratives and myths and share new discoveries and fresh interpretation of the Imperial conquest of Britain and its two-way impact.

We return to the beautiful and historic city of York for this symposium. Our venue is the wood-panelled Grand Boardroom of the former offices of the North Eastern Railway, now a five-star hotel – The Grand, York, where participants also stay and where we will dine on both evenings.

Speakers:

Dr Andrew Birley

CEO & Director of Excavations, The Vindolanda Trust. Andrew is the third generation of Birley’s to work as the Director of Excavations for the Vindolanda Trust. He started excavating at the site as a teenager and then got his undergraduate degree and PhD from the University of Leicester. He has worked at the site in a full-time capacity since 1996, becoming Director of Excavations in 2005 and CEO in 2015. A former Chair of the Archaeology Committee for the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies he is widely published on Vindolanda and the Roman frontier in Britain.

Professor Will Bowden

Professor of Roman Archaeology at the University of Nottingham. He has worked on excavations in the UK, Albania, Italy and Jordan and has published widely on these areas. He is particularly interested in the end of the Roman Empire and since 2005 he has run a major community archaeology project at Caistor St Edmund in Norfolk, investigating the Roman town of Venta Icenorum. He is keen to promote public understanding of archaeology and has appeared on programmes such as Time Team and The Great British Dig.

Professor Maureen Carroll

Professor of Roman Archaeology at York University. She has directed excavations in Germany, Italy, Tunisia and Britain. Maureen worked for the state archaeological services in Germany and taught at the University of Cologne, before she became Professor of Roman Archaeology at the University of Sheffield. She took the Chair at York university in 2020. Her key research interests are Roman burial practices, funerary commemoration and Roman childhood and family studies. A further area of interest is Roman garden archaeology.

Professor Richard Hingley

Emeritus Professor of Archaeology at the University of Durham. He is the author of eight books, including studies of Boudica, Hadrian’s Wall and the Roman conquest of Britain. His current focus of scholarship includes writing a guide for visitors to the Roman towns of Britain and researching Iron Age roundhouse reconstructions and open-air museums. His latest book, Conquering the Ocean, was published in 2022, a paperback edition is published in spring 2024.

Professor Martin Millett

Emeritus Professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of Cambridge and President of the Society of Antiquaries of London. His work focuses both on the impact of Roman imperialism on indigenous societies and on the application of survey methods in archaeology. He has led fieldwork and excavation projects in Spain, Portugal and Italy as well as in Britain, where much of his work has concerned the landscapes of Yorkshire. He is currently working on a new synthesis of Roman Britain for Princeton University Press.

Dr Sam Moorhead

National Finds Adviser for Iron Age and Roman Coins in the Portable Antiquities Scheme at the British Museum from 2006 to 2023. He specialises in the world of late antiquity across the Roman world, including the neighbouring cultures to the east. He is writing a major new edition of the Roman Imperial Coinage series for the British emperors Carausius and Allectus, and is cataloguing the 52,500 coins in the Frome Hoard. He is an Honorary Lecturer at the Institute of Archaeology, UCL, a Fellow of Goodenough College, London, and was awarded the Medal of the Royal Numismatic Society in 2019.

Dr Matthew Symonds

Editor of Current World Archaeology magazine and one of the leading scholars on Roman frontiers in Britain. He has co-edited three volumes on the subject of frontiers and is the author of Hadrian’s Wall: creating division. He is a visiting fellow at Newcastle University and lectures for the Institute of Continuing Education, Cambridge University. He has excavated in Bulgaria, Sicily, Italy and Britain, but is most at home on Hadrian’s Wall.

Dr Jane Webster

Senior Lecturer in Historical Archaeology at the University of Newcastle. Her research crosses traditional frontiers (both temporal and disciplinary) but focuses on colonial material culture, from the early Roman Empire to the 18th century. A renowned expert in the field, she has published widely on slavery in Roman Britain.