Want to find out more about the Fenwick Treasure? – the fascinating hoard of gold and silver jewellery found last year on the Williams and Griffin excavation in Colchester town centre. If you do, then now’s your chance. The latest edition of The Colchester Archaeologist has just hit the streets and the details are in that. It’s a bumber 48 page edition covering the years 2013-14 with about the half the magazine devoted to this quite extraordinary find. There you will find photographs of the newly-cleaned gold and silver jewellery, the silver coins, and the little silver jewellery box that held among other things the pair of pearl earrings and the five gold finger rings. Extracts from the dig diary culminate with the moment of its discovery. There, buried in the shallowest of holes dug in the floor of a house, lay the precious possessions of a Roman couple facing the bleakest of outlooks. Did they really think they might see their valuables again? Who knows but certainly they didn’t for soon the gold and silver were to be buried under heaps of burnt building debris as Boudicca ruthlessly pursued her aim to free Britain of the Romans and their army.
The Colchester Archaeologist also contains other articles about recent work by the Trust elsewhere including the investigation of the unique (and very large) monumental arcade which once stood along the front of the Temple of Claudius in Colchester.
The magazine costs £3.95 and is available in the Roman Circus Centre as well as Red Lion Books, Waterstones and the Colchester Museum in Colchester town centre. The magazine can also be ordered direct from the Roman Circus Centre, Roman Circus Walk, Colchester, CO2 7GZ for £5.50 including postage and packing (UK ). Please ask for the charges for delivery outside the UK.
