Nigel Page from Warwickshire Archaeology will be giving a talk to the Coventry Society on Monday 13th January at 7.30pm at the Shopfront Theatre, City Arcade.
The talk will focus on the Anglo-Saxon Archaeological finds at Baginton, adjacent to the Lunt Roman Fort. The dig was completed before the building work on the new Jaguar Land Rover site started.
Nigel is a Senior archaeologist with Warwickshire Archaeology, which is part of Warwickshire County Council.
Earlier evaluation of the site by Oxford Archaeology in 2012 had identified a few features of interest and, perhaps most importantly, a cremation cemetery. It was thought likely that this was associated directly with the Roman fort or the local Anglo-Saxon neighbourhood or settlement.
The site proved to be a very large archaeology dig site and the underlying geology consisted mostly of sand which is easy to dig, even without modern tools. The cremation cemetery contained over sixty burials. Items within burials included numerous complete pots, two mirrors, two glass bottles, brooches, the odd coin (one definitely of Vespasian), pins, a ring with an intaglio and the remains of at least two copper bound boxes plus a copper alloy hanging bowl. The star feature consisted of a large pit with 23 near complete pots and an oil lamp.
Archaeologists believe two of the graves contained a “high status” ranking officer and Roman girl, aged between six and 12.
We look forward to Nigel Page telling us all about all these exciting finds.
You will have time to ask questions about the dig, the future of the finds and where the Section 106 money from JLR will be spent, as well as the future developments at the Lunt Roman Fort.
The meeting is on Monday 13th January at 7.30pm at the Shopfront Theatre, 38 City Arcade. CovSoc meetings are free for members. Guests are invited to make a contribution of £2 towards refreshments and meeting costs.
