AN INVESTIGATION OF NINETEENTH-CENTURY ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE FOR ROMAN BRITAIN AND ITS CONTEMPORARY RECEPTION WITHIN BRITISH SOCIETY

Abstract

This project will analyze nineteenth-century archaeological records for Roman-British sites and policies involving artefacts and museums. I will use findings to form connections between archaeological activity during the Victorian period and contemporary British thought on Britain’s past, racial hierarchies, and imperialism. Particularly pertinent to this study is the way in which Britons used their perceived Roman past to justify the expansion and maintenance of their empire. This period of archaeological excavation was a unique time in which science and storytelling intermingled to create a picture of Britain’s past. The sudden increase in finding the remains of Roman Britain was attributed to the demands of urbanization during the nineteenth century. Thus far, Victoria Hoselitz’s work Imagining Roman Britain: Victorian responses to a Roman past (2007) is the only study I have come across to utilize a similar approach to that of my project in order to draw conclusions about British culture during the Victorian period. In order to complete my research, I have consulted nineteenth-century excavation reports by various British antiquarians. In addition, rare, published works and physical remains at various institutions, including the British Library and the British Museum, have been consulted.