Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

During the excavation ahead of the placement of two 10 inch guns and magazine at shot yard battery, about 10 deep shafts were dicovered sunk into the solid chalk. They have been interpreted as Roman ritual shafts (location accurate to the nearest 10m based on available information).

Monument Types

• RITUAL SHAFT (RITUAL SHAFT, Roman - 43 AD to 409 AD)

Associated Finds

• WORKED FLINT (Prehistoric or Roman - 500000 BC? to 409 AD?)
• ANIMAL REMAINS (Roman - 43 AD? to 409 AD?)
• BROOCH (Roman - 43 AD? to 409 AD?)
• NAIL (Roman - 43 AD? to 409 AD?)
• OYSTER SHELL (Roman - 43 AD? to 409 AD?)
• SHERD (Roman - 43 AD? to 409 AD?)
• SPUR (Roman - 43 AD to 409 AD)
• STIRRUP (Roman - 43 AD? to 409 AD?)

Full description

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Taken from the source:
During the excavation ahead of the placement of two 10 inch guns and magazine at shot yard battery, about 10 deep shafts were dicovered sunk into the solid chalk. They were rectangular in form, slightly rounded at the corners, had an average size approximately 4ft squate and were between 16 to 20 feet in depth.

The contents consisted of a light friable earth much resembling decayed matter with occasional layers of charcoal containing large numbers of the shells of oysters, limpets, cockles and whelks. Many differing kinds of animal bone were also identified within these pits including those of a horse, ox and pig. Coarse broken pottery similar in character to the Roman Cinery Urns was present, often blackened by fire along with occasional fragments of vessels for holding liquids in both an red and black ware. Flints were also common within the fill of these shafts, some were unmiskably fashioned as instruments and arrowheads. Numerous iron objects were uncovered including lots of nails, a few spear heads, knife blades, a stirrup iron and a perfect iron spur with a fixed rowel the surface of which had been first bronzed and then guilded. Finally an ivory ornament probably used as a brooch was located.

In form and contents these shafts closely agree with those opened by the Hon. R. C. Neville at the Roman station of Chesterford. Despite this, their use and object have been the subject of much discussion; the commonly received opinion that they were intended as a rubbish pit is unsatisfactory. The main argument against this proposed function of the shafts is that there is no discolouration of the chalk, it is also true that the labour required to excavate these shafts would have seemed unnecessary when the site is within a few metres of the then sea-washed cliffs. There is also no evidence to identify them with the underground recepticles for grain.

From the character of the pottery it seems more probable that their object was sepulchral, in which case the presence of the bones would be explained by a reversion to the earlier british sacrificial rights in connection with burial, though it still would be difficult to account for the mutilated condition of the pottery; this peculiarity however, may perhaps be the result of some local causes, as the graves at chesterford supply many unbroken specimens.(1)

<1> W. Emerson Peck, 1880, Archaeologia: Notes on the Keep, the Roman Pharos, and the Shafts at the Shot Yard Battery, Dover Castle Vol. 45, Arch 45 1880 335-336 (W Emerson Peck) (Article in serial). SKE31916.

Sources and further reading

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