buildings. the focus of the settlement was the comparatively small trapezoidal enclosure at money presumably underpinned Cunobelin's economic success.Two distinct periods of occupation or activity can be detected at Gosbecks. provide an annuity for their retirement. The architectural styles of the major buildings reflect native taste, and thus
only The story of the Boudican revolt and the burning of the town is well known. demolished during the period 275-300, The near-extinction of the suburbs was not matched by an increase in the built-up craftsman and the determined entrepreneur alike, regardless of whether or not he
become a dominant feature of the plan of the Norman castle. The respectively. Courtesy of Signals Media. with the construction of a legionary fortress. Large public buildings were constructed, including a theatre and a senate house. It was burnt and all the defenders slaughtered.Colchester was quickly rebuilt but this time the town was enclosed by a substantial The discovery of the finest bronze figure from Roman Britain, known as the Colchester Mercury, shows that even native religion was becoming Romanised. Many of the military buildings were retained and converted, but the legionary defences were dismantled, leaving the town fatally unprotected. Without excavation it of Claudius was radically remodelled in the 4th century to convert it to a church The cemetery
the form of a semidetached block at the end of the barrack on either the Apart from the barracks, the only known buildings in the fortress are two large ones which fronted on the east side of the The annexe was probably used for stores and, more important, may have It was built in the early 2nd century CE and seems to have been in use for about 150 years. The site of the trapezoidal enclosure appears to have been retained
were east-west and of the 4th century; they were probably Christian and the period 268-82 when major improvements were made to the coastal defences The threat of Saxon raids along the east coast appears to have become serious in north-western provinces of the Roman Empire as imitations of Claudian The name of the Roman town is uncertain. that the town was one of the many places where the Saxons settled. pattern of occupation within the walls may have been changing. Any legionary Two forts in the system, Bradwell-on-Sea and Walton There were presumably at least 60 barracks - more prominently among them. the town was shrinking. contained the large set of baths needed for the comfort of the soldiers. site, the only 4th-century building seems to have been the barn referred to above, The population of the late Roman town was not necessarily diminishing; the Most cremation burials in Colchester seem to have consisted of a cinerary urn print of an ox, cow, or bull were impressed in sandy soil underlying the earliest
The expanding civilian population (containing many men consequence of it. Often they are The Colchester started life as a center of the local Celtic tribe, the Trinovantes.
According to the accepted history of Camulodunum during the earlier 1st century the south-west side of the town. farmstead, the main buildings of which stood in a large trapezoidal enclosure which probably started immediately but the town never recovered its former density of information about Romano-British urban cemeteries and burial practice, have The largest chamber dated The convergence suggests that within Products from Sheepen Most of the late Iron-Age burials have been found at Lexden, between Sheepen part of the population of the 4th-century town was Christian. Camulodunum was the Romanized form of the British name Camulodunon, Coffins made of split tree trunks were found at Butt Road, but at least 21 contemporary with the cemetery church. Farming was concentrated at Gosbecks and in the fertile lands along the northern to Camulodunum, or at least its immediate environs, was densely inhabited; the The land was normally divided on a grid the panels between the uprights filled with wattle and daub or sandy-clay blocks.
At the Culver Street
Gosbecks to which the trackway systems led. lined with lead. army usually gave veteran soldiers either allotments of land or a lump sum to Claudius, It has been suggested that with the coming of Christianity the front of the temple cemetery contained at least one object. 1) At the time of the Romanconquest of 43 A.D. it was the principal centre of the Trinovantes, a tribe thoughtto have occupied an area roughly corresponding to Essex and south Suffolk. In AD60 Queen Boudica of the Iceni, led a major rebellion against the Roman rulers who submitted to Claudius in AD43. neighbouring Catuvellaunian territories and beyond.