YAC create obelisks and play Aquila


 Colchester young archaeologists' club members met up out of the cold and the rain in their 'home' at Roman Circus House. They used their imagination to colour and decorate obelisks with YAC in hieroglyphs and glued them together. They made small mosaic coasters.

   They also played Aquila, sets of which the inventor of the game has donated to the club. Read on for the story of Aquila.

  About twenty seven years ago, well before all our present club members were born, the archaeologists from Colchester Archaeological Trust, who are now based at Roman Circus House, excavated the grave of a Romano/British doctor or druid in Stanway, near Colchester. The excavation was reconstructed, exactly as found, and is on display in Colchester Castle. Among the artefacts carefully placed in the burial were forceps, tweezers, a woven cloth and pots, including an infusion (tea?) pot for brewing up remedies. It was a momentous excavation which indicated the degree of sophistication British healers had at the time of the Roman invasion of Britain.

  Not only did the burial artefacts indicate the druid or doctor used equipment, such as we might use today, but they suggest a lifestyle which included healing and leisure time. Below is a picture of the reconstruction of the burial on display in Colchester Castle. On the right hand side is a board. Ignore the forceps, tweezers and divining rods scattered on the board and look at the counters. This game of strategy, set out as though it was being played, was a most unusual find. It suggests it was so enjoyable, the set was placed in the tomb to be enjoyed in the afterlife. When I viewed this excavation, I remember archaeologist Philip Crummy, who was leading the dig, speculated how this game from nearly two millennia ago might have been played.

It wasn't long before, much to everyone's delight, Alex Jones devised a strategy game from the evidence excavated. Alex made boards to match the prototype, sourced similar glass counters, and named his game Aquila. Members of Colchester Young Archaeologists' club love to play it.



   

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Work experience student drew plans for city

Image
 Above is a picture of the model of the walled city of Roman Colchester. Today at the Young Archaeologists' Club we had a surprise visitor. Niles was a member of the club when it met in Colchester Castle and was one of the members who helped restart the club in October 2012. He was delighted to see the model had been completed. 'Do you know drew the plans for this?' he asked. 'Philip, I should think,' I replied. Niles admitted to drawing the plans as part of his work experience at Colchester Archaeological Trust.  
Read more

Caught and destroyed in the "Tudor Web"

Image
 Upheavals and reform in the Tudor period transformed the built environment in Essex. All that is left of a once great Benedictine Abbey, south of Colchester's town walls is its magnificent gatehouse. YAC Adam writes:- "St John's Abbey was founded in 1096 by Eudo Dapifer with the order of St Benedict (Benedictines). The Abbey was the largest abbey in Colchester and the fourth largest abbey in England. It was built where "miraculous voices" could be heard. Eudo even claimed to have witnessed a miracle at that site. Eudo is also known to have laid the first stone of the Abbey and the Abbey was burned partially in a large fire that affected the town in 1133. The Abbey also received a vial of St Thomas a Becket's blood from a monk named Ralph. This vial was the Abbey's most important relic. The Abbey was the victim of a mob attack during the peasant's revolt. The Abbey was also believed to have supported the Plantagenets leading to Richard lll's mothe
Read more

Why the Essex coast is a treasure-trove of paleontology

Image
On a warm June day, Colchester young archaeologists' club gathered on the Essex coast to comb the beach for fossils. One of our volunteers had prepared a check sheet for finds of such things as fossil shells from the red crag, fossil wood and sharks teeth. Everything was carefully checked by an expert on hand, who explained the geology of the coast and how and why there were so many interesting things we could discover, from thousands to millions of years ago. The tide came in earlier than anticipated, but that gave us an opportunity to examine the fossilised wood from monkey puzzle trees. sharks teeth, a fresh water snail shell fossil and a tiny fossil fish tail discovered in the shingle on the beach, among many other things. Below is a picture of these extraordinary cliffs with a key to the features.   A Glacial sand and gravel on which you can see ice wedges. During the devensian period, 100,000 years ago. B Grey/green clay sediment from a large river the Medway/Thames ran to co
Read more