Roman Port unearthed
- 24 August 2011 01:46122705Archaeologists have discovered only the second known port of Roman Britain, where soldiers would have arrived in numbers from the Mediterranean to aid in the fight against some of the most stubborn and hostile of all the tribes they had to face.
Over the last year, archaeologists have been digging near the Roman fortress of Caerleon, just north of Newport, south Wales, and have made some remarkable discoveries. On Tuesday, the site was declared the only known Roman British port outside London.
"It is extremely exciting," Peter Guest, leading the excavation team from Cardiff University, said. "What we have found exceeds all expectations. It now seems clear that we're looking at a new addition to our knowledge of Roman Britain."
Guest said the archaeologists had discovered far more than a quayside or harbour installation, adding: "It seems to be a deliberately founded and made port structure that goes with the legionary fortress in Caerleon."
The remains are incredibly well-preserved, partly because the land has been used for grazing for so long and has not been intensively ploughed.
Archaeologists digging on the banks of the River Usk have found the main quay wall as well as landing stages, wharves and dockside tracks.
The port would have been for the fortress, the farthest flung of all Roman outposts and the place where, some believe, Arthur later convened his Camelot court. The fortress was constructed in AD74-75 as the military headquarters of the second Augustan Legion, one of four legions that invaded Britain during the reign of the emperor Claudius.
Having a port on the River Usk would have made it far easier to supply the frontline than "traipse over mile after mile after mile of bumpy Roman road", Guest said.
I always thought that Dover had been a Roman port but the above report states that this is the known port outside London?
Read more about it here http://www.britarch.ac.uk/caf/wikka.php?wakka=CaerleonLegionaryFortressMarek
I think therefore I am (not a Tory supporter) - 24 August 2011 06:43122708http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/adsdata/cbaresrep/pdf/024/02405001.pdf
A different view, with 45 likely ports mentioned, including Caerleon.I'm an optimist. But I'm an optimist who takes my raincoat - Harold Wilson - 24 August 2011 07:24122719Good link there Peter - a good write-up on our area's harbours.
Perhaps a bit of exaggeration from South Wales ?
Roger - Jan Higgins
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,931
24 August 2011 08:02122730Maybe the Welsh are trying to improve their tourist industry with a little exaggeration.-----------------------------------------------------------------------
I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
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24 August 2011 08:06122731and there was me thinking that dover was still a roman port with its pot holed bumpy roads. - 24 August 2011 08:11122733Jan
Maybe Dover should do the same...
..it wouldn't do us any harm. It's a pity that more isn't made out of the Bronze Age Boat which is considered by some to be the worlds oldest ship.Marek
I think therefore I am (not a Tory supporter) - 24 August 2011 18:12122825It is claimed to be the World's oldest sea-going boat - but I think there's another trown claiming the same thing with their ancient find.
Roger - 24 August 2011 22:35122871It is the world's oldest sea vessel, dating from around 1550 years BC. Dover is Britain's oldest port.
Britannia inherited the Roman light-tower, and with it the Roman Empire!Chanters, Drums and Drones Potty Time http://youtu.be/99fMqpjnXYA
Rule Britannia!
Kent First http://youtu.be/04F3mAP3fV4 Keep banging on http://youtu.be/qYCU_SKmkGQ - 24 August 2011 22:50122872The Dover boat is not, I'm afraid, the oldest potentially sea-worthy boat in Europe. Three sewn-plank boats were found at Ferriby in Yorkshire in the thirties, forties and sixties. These have been dated 2-500 years older than the Dover boat. A handful of crude boats hollowed out from logs that predate the Dover boat have also been found.
- 24 August 2011 23:33122875Phil, the logs you refer to, and the boats in Yorkshire, are river vessels not seafaring craft.
There is a difference, as the Dover boat, being designed to travel out to high sea, is known to have docked in South West Britain, not far from Cornwall where the copper mines were.
Dover's vessels were engaged in big-time commerce sailing the seas around Britain and crossing over to Gaul and back.
Information about the oldest sea vessel can be found online, and it is definitely Dover's! I personally made sure of this!
Chanters, Drums and Drones Potty Time http://youtu.be/99fMqpjnXYA
Rule Britannia!
Kent First http://youtu.be/04F3mAP3fV4 Keep banging on http://youtu.be/qYCU_SKmkGQ - 25 August 2011 00:26122877Well that brings us all back to another very important vessel-another last/oldest survivor. Arguably as important to Dover as the Bronze age boat. Once the doyen of the straits service-TSS Dover- a vision from living memory.Never give up...
- 25 August 2011 06:59122890Any news on it Richard ?
Roger - 25 August 2011 08:26122901I do totally agree that the carved log boats were used for river travel only - that seems pretty clear from their design. However, from the half dozen or so boat remains we have, it appears that the sewn plank boats were the pinnacle in British boat-technology in the Early Bronze Age and there was nothing more advanced. We can therefore be less certain about their functions.
Although as you say they could, and may well, have been used for transportation up and down the coast and rivers, the design does not preclude them from sea-going. Ultimately goods were transported to and from the UK from Europe and Scandinavia during the (pre Dover boat) Early Bronze Age and earlier, so clearly they had to be transported somehow - if these sewn plank boats were not used for this purpose, then what was?
Trouble is, we simply don't know the purpose of the Ferriby and other sewn boats. Although they were seaworthy, it doesn't necessarily imply that they were used for the purpose of long-distant trade. Conversely, there is no evidence that they weren't, either.
Goods, and people, were transported to Britain from hundreds of years before the Dover boat. For example, the Amesbury Archer came from the Alps and had a copper knife from Spain and he died roughly 800 years before the Dover boat. I'm afraid the theory that the Dover boat is Britain's first seaworthy boat doesn't, pardon the pun, hold water. - 25 August 2011 10:35122915Phil, of-course boats crossing the seas were being used before the construction of the Dover Bronze Age Boat, but our boat is the oldest one that is in existence.
In this sense, it is the oldest sea vessel in the world.
When examining such craft, it is possible to determine whether they were used at sea or along rivers owing to scientific evidence that is found on the wood.
It is also quite obvious that sea craft were operating from Dover long before the vessel that came down to us, only none of these older ones has ever been discovered.
It has never been stated that the Dover Boat is the oldest one that ever existed in Dover or elsewhere in the world, but it is the oldest to have been found.
As for commerce between Britain and Europe in the Stone and Bronze Ages, this would have come primarily through Dover, being visible from Gaul and having an estuary for docking. It is unlikely that crossings would be made from Scandinavia or Spain to any part of Britain during the Bronze Age, as the distances would make such attempts far to risky for the vessels in use then.
More likely that items from Scandinavia, Iberia and elsewhere would be transported by land (and river) to the Calais area (Calais would have had another name then), and then transported to Dubra (Dover) and sold on the market or to a whole-sale importer.
Even the Greeks, Phoneaceans and Romans didn't travel by ship as far as Scandinavia, for all that their ships of the late Iron Age were more modern: they would have docked somewhere in Gaul and sent the products by land and river (the Rhine) to Denmark, and from there the Danes would have been able to transport them by sea to nearby Sweden, which is only a few miles away from Denmark, and from Sweden to Norway.
No-one would have crossed in the remote Bronze Age from Britain over the North Sea to Scandinavia, though!
So whether one agrees or not, it is clear that only Kent, and primarily Dover, was the place for seafaring ships to operate from between Britain and Europe.
Dover certainly had seacraft many centuries before the one which was discovered, only none of these older ones (or later ones) ever survived the elements.
In fact, the very first people to step foot in Britain must have arrived in Dover! They certainly did not cross the sea from Scandinavia. Can you see Scotland from Norway?Chanters, Drums and Drones Potty Time http://youtu.be/99fMqpjnXYA
Rule Britannia!
Kent First http://youtu.be/04F3mAP3fV4 Keep banging on http://youtu.be/qYCU_SKmkGQ - 25 August 2011 11:10122922interesting link here the museum claims our one to be the oldest seagoing vessel.
http://www.dover.gov.uk/museum/bronze_age_boat.aspx - 25 August 2011 12:53122930I thought Noah had things sorted boat-wise long before our boat
Been nice knowing you :) - 25 August 2011 13:30122932Re post #9. Here is one of them.
I was looking at this in the museum a few weeks ago, hollowed from a solid Oak tree trunk and still in reasonably good shape.grass grows by the inches but dies by the feet. - Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
25 August 2011 16:16122940your right there ian,you cant beat a nice piece of english oak. - 25 August 2011 23:32123009Well Roger(re #13) -here's the latest. On the face of it things remain the same 'TSS Dover' is a negative asset now owned by the crown and she remains a sorry state sunk at her moorings on the River Tees. Technically we could buy her now for a pound. Currently we are still waiting for a decision from the MOD marine salvage team who are attempting to organise a MACA scheme to refloat the vessel through the environment agency and move her to the safety of a nearby dry dock. The dock itself is not quite operational (gates need work) but we believe that we can get local sponsorship in the Teeside area to make them operational. The owners of the dock PD Ports fully approve of our project and are being very helpful i.e. we get the dock going and and we get to use it. We get facilities to repair our vessel and Teeside gets another working dry-dock. Obviously we need to get her to dock for probable repairs to the hull and there are no suitable docks in the South East -never mind Dover. The idea is to repair the hull and much heavy machinery on Teeside and tow her south-hopefully to Dover for fitting out and commissioning.
Now here's the interesting bit-we are now working with K College to set up a cadet apprenticeship scheme based around the vessel-we have also made contact with Middlesborough college to do exactly the same. Students will exchange and travel north to south and visa versa. When the vessel is complete the educational focus will change to navigation and operational engineering. This presents a fantastic training and career creation opportunity and ticks many of the potential funding boxes.
'DOVER' will be fully operational as a steam turbine powered vessel and will comply with the very latest SOLAS and emissions standards. We could well have to sacrifice car deck space to additional buoyancy compartments-but it would seem that plying her trade as a coastal passenger vessel (as she once did from Folkestone) would be her future(premium fares of course!).
That's the plan-it's starting to develop nicely...
Fingers crossed for the good old MOD!
'Dover's' engine room-currently subterranean!Never give up... - 25 August 2011 23:35123010You Can't beat a liitle bit of old British Steel either!Never give up...
