A renowned academic, author and broadcaster, Prof Alice Roberts, is the latest visitor to Carlisle’s archaeological dig.
She visited the site over two days this week and got to see the two monumental Roman carved heads unearthed from the Cricket Club site earlier this month.
She said:
“It’s great that this is a community dig. There’s a huge roster of volunteers this year, so the site I think has grown a real kind of following over the years, and there’s lots of different ages. I mean, it’s absolutely great. People, who are just really engaged by getting in touch with the history of Carlisle, they’re responsible for making new discoveries on a daily basis. It’s really exciting!
“I was really stunned at the size of the trench, and the archaeology in it. It’s deep, there’s lots of different layers. There is very clear Roman architecture which you can see. You can see the hypocaust, which is Roman underfloor heating. You can see well engineered drains. You can see massive walls, they’re really enormous.
“So, this would have been a big, monumental building. The thinking is this would have been a very large Roman bathhouse. Roman bathhouses come in a variety of shapes and sizes, this one is pushing the extremes.
“Of course, there’s a lot of people coming to site to have a look at these amazing heads that have been found. They actually emerged on the first and second days of the dig here this year. They’re large, they’re much larger than a human head, they’re angled so they might have been positioned on maybe the corner of the building, something like that. There’s possibly another one buried in the road, you can see the top of it, that’s very exciting as well. They’re absolutely entrancing.
“This site is really waking people up to the exciting archaeology that there is here in Carlisle, (maybe) not waking people up to, but helping people, get in touch with that heritage in a really physical way.
“I’ve had a lovely time chatting to quite a few of the local volunteers who are here regularly, they’re doing really hard work on the site.
“I was called over to the wet sieving area and one of the volunteers had just found another one of these beautiful little engraved jewels, these intaglios, which are set into rings and used to make impressions in wax so they are from a signet ring effectively. What we think is that people came to the baths wearing this jewellery, they didn’t take it off when they went into the baths, and they’re losing the gems out of their rings - and must have come out thinking “oh! I’ve lost my gem!” and it’s ended up in the drains, and that’s where we are finding most of these intaglios. It’s an amazing site”.
The dig got underway on Monday 22 May and has been extended until Saturday 1 July.
The site continues to be active and is open to the public between Monday and Saturday. Tours of the site are held at 11.30am and 3pm on each of these days. Volunteering opportunities are still available too.