Under English Garden, ‘Unparalleled’ Remains of Roman Villa
By STEVEN ERLANGER

LONDON — The geraniums grew in an oblong stone vessel, and no one ever thought much about it. But when Luke Irwin, a rug designer in the county of Wiltshire, England, hired workmen to lay electric cables under his yard, so that his son could have light in a barn when the family played table tennis, they uncovered an intricate mosaic floor of red, blue and white tiles only 18 inches down.

Mr. Irwin called the local council, which sent archaeologists who discovered the remains of a lavish Roman villa under his extensive yard, and told him that the flowers were growing in what had been a child’s coffin.

“I sent a photograph to the council, and within 24 hours they were here with archaeologists to see what we’d found,” Mr. Irwin said. Experts from Salisbury Museum in Wiltshire and Historic England, a government body, carefully began excavating the site and understood that the mosaic was part of the floor of a large building, which they believe to be one of the largest Roman villas discovered in England.

News of the find, which occurred last summer, was reported by the Press Association, the British news agency, and filled the Sunday papers here.

In an eight-day dig in the property, near Tisbury, archaeologists also found coins, jewelry, pottery, a well, under-floor heating pipes, and the shells of hundreds of oysters and whelks, which had apparently been farmed, harvested and then carried 45 miles into the countryside in barrels of salt water, indicating that the Roman owners were people of some standing and wealth.

Historic England called the find “unparalleled in recent years,” in part because the remains of the villa, with its outbuildings, were so undisturbed, and it is hoping to get more funds for a more complete dig. It estimates that the villa had 20 to 25 rooms on the ground floor alone.

Dating from between A.D. 175 and 220, the home is thought to have been three stories high, and survived the collapse of the Roman Empire and the rise of the Saxons.

David Roberts, an archaeologist from Historic England, said the artifacts showed the villa had belonged to an “elite family” who lived a “luxurious” life. “It’s clearly not your run-of-the-mill domestic settlement,” he said.

“The site has not been touched since its collapse 1,400 years ago, and so it’s of extreme importance,” Mr. Roberts said. Only a few test pits have been dug, but he said it was clear the walls of the villa were probably still more than a yard high, although they are buried under alluvial sediment from a nearby river.

The discovery has been compared to a Roman villa at Chedworth, found in 1864 and then put on display, and acquired by the National Trust in 1924. Chedworth was built as a dwelling around three sides of a courtyard, with a fine mosaic floor, as well as two separate bathing suites.

Some of the artifacts from the Irwin find have been taken to the Salisbury Museum, and the rest of the dig has been covered up for now, to protect it.

As for Mr. Irwin, who visited Pompeii as a child, the find was moving, and he found a comparison between the mosaic floor and the luxury carpets he designs for what he called “the Roman aristocrats of today.”

整修農莊 他挖出千年羅馬莊園

英國一名地毯設計師歐文（Luke Irwin）在威爾特郡（Wiltshire）農莊意外發現迄今境內保存最完好、規模最大的古羅馬莊園。考古學家表示，這座古老莊園有近2000年歷史，完整精美，推測屋主可能是當時的統治精英，是英國近年重大考古發現。

據英國獨立報報導，歐文原計畫在家中花園挖地舖電線，讓兒子可以在該處玩耍，沒想到在地下發現一層馬賽克嵌磚。歐文回憶到，「我發了一張照片去市政府，不出24小時，他們就聯同考古學家來這兒查看我們發現的東西。」

他找來博物館的考古學家，花了八天挖掘，發現那幅用紅藍白方石子拼砌的馬賽克，屬於一座「精緻」、「保存異常完好」的豪宅地板。他們還在地下羅馬莊園遺跡，發現銅錢、飾針等古物，甚至一個羅馬孩童的棺材。

此外，考古學家還發現了數百個被丟棄的蠔殼、螺殼，相信若非由人工養殖，就是從72公里外海邊運到此地；而隨遺址出土的，還有「顯示極高地位身分的陶器」、珠寶及被獵殺野生動物的骨頭。種種跡象顯示，該莊園應屬應屬富貴精英所有，專家推測該莊園建於公元175至220年間，原樓高3層，地面一層便有20至25間房。

考古學家羅伯茨指出，此次發現非常重要，「這個遺址自從羅馬崩潰再無受過干擾，代表著探究羅馬和後羅馬時代英國的一個特殊機會。」

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/18/world/europe/under-english-garden-unparalleled-remains-of-roman-villa.html

2016-04-20 03:31 世界日報 編譯中心