Crownthorpe: a Boudican hoard of bronze vessels from early Roman Norfolk

Abstract

official Roman presence at Maryport. The excavators, rightly, do not overindulge in speculation. However, it is the importance of their findings, and the strength of this report, that we can be inspired to ponder wider aspects of the practice of Roman religion and how a community in the far north-west of Britannia responded to it. A word must be said about the cover illustration, which is a very atmospheric reconstruction image of the two temples, with the clouds of the dark ages looming over them. A sunnier and more optimistic reconstruction can be seen on the back cover, and would have been my preference for the front image. In all, this volume is essential reading for anyone interested in frontier religion, classical cults in the provinces, and in the final century of the Roman North. It casts much-needed new light on classical/military religious practice, using a site that has the best such evidence in Britain.