Tea at Trianon: A Mosaic Discovered at a Roman Villa in Rutland

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, December 19, 2021

A Mosaic Discovered at a Roman Villa in Rutland

From Country Life:

An elaborate Roman villa complex discovered in Rutland in 2020 has been protected as a Scheduled Monument, after excavators uncovered a 36ft by 23ft floor mosaic depicting the battle between Achilles and Hector during the Trojan War. This is the first example in the UK to show scenes from Homer’s Iliad and one of only a handful across Europe.

‘What started as a ramble through the fields with the family turned into an incredible discovery,’ explains Jim Irvine, whose father, Brian Naylor, owns the field.

‘Finding some unusual pottery among the wheat piqued my interest and prompted some further investigative work. Later, looking at the satellite imagery I spotted a very clear crop mark… this really was the “oh wow” moment.’

Leicestershire County Council and Historic England got involved, securing funding for urgent archaeological investigations by the University of Leicester Archaeological Services (ULAS) and, as well as the mosaic in a large 3rd–4th-century villa, outbuildings including barns and a bathhouse were found. The rubble above the mosaic contained late-Roman/early-medieval human remains, thought to be a deliberate burial.

‘This has been… extraordinary,’ enthuses Richard Clark, county archaeologist for Leicestershire and Rutland, ‘placing the county on a national and international stage and providing a vivid insight into the life and demise of the local Romano-British elite at a time of remarkable change.’ (Read more.)