the Trust’s find of Roman intaglio in local press

Today (16th May), Trust excavator Stefania Usai is featured in the banner at the top of the front page of the Essex County Standard, with a  photo. captioned ‘Stefania’s historic find’. The article itself is published on page 6; it is titled ‘Intaglio discovered’ and subtitled ‘Tiny Roman artefact found at W&G exploration’, and accompanied by pictures of Stefania holding the intaglio and a close-up of the intaglio. Stefania and the intaglio also made it into the town’s Daily Gazette on Wednesday (14th May).

The article opens with ‘… A gemstone dating back 1,700 years has been found by archaeologists in Colchester town centre …’, and it includes comments on the site by Trust director Philip.

The Trust is currently excavating a site within the Williams & Griffin store in the High Street at Colchester. Stefania made the find of the intaglio last Friday. The intaglio is a semi-precious stone incised with a standing human figure, which would have been mounted in a finger-ring and used to impress the image in wax seals. The intaglio was excavated in a post-Roman pit but which was, however, full of Roman material. The site is situated on the northern side of the Roman town’s principal street. The site has produced some fascinating evidence: of the modern iron foundry, of a well-appointed Roman town-house, of a Roman building which was destroyed during the Boudican revolt in AD 60/1 and, pre-dating all those, a building of the Roman fortress which was probably demolished in the AD 50s.

When she is not working on site, Stefania is the Trust’s education officer and she leads school workshops on Roman Colchester and our Roman circus, either here at Roman Circus House or in schools.

The excavations at the Williams & Griffin store are being funded by Fenwick Ltd.

The image shows part of the front page of the Essex County Standard today.

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