Rituals, Rubbish and Retrieval: new approaches to Roman river finds

从王者之剑到尼伯龙根，被扔进水中的物品发挥了诗意和大众的想象力，从潮湿环境中发现的物品代表了一个主要的考古研究主题。对于罗马时期，进步一直受到理论和方法论问题的阻碍。我们的项目将汇集德国学者和英国考古学家所采取的方法，德国学者通常倾向于对罗马河流发现的“理性”解释（如垃圾处理或意外损失），英国考古学家通常倾向于自愿沉积。关于以前的工作，有德国的区域概述，但没有英国的，而英国的申请人最近制作了第一份出版物，直接比较了整个河流组合与附近定居点的发现，突出了陆地和水中沉积的变化。我们将把皮尔斯布里奇的经验教训应用到特里尔罗马世界最大和最重要的河流组合之一，特里尔是一个主要的城市中心，拥有一系列有据可查的桥梁。在低潮时期（20世纪70年代至90年代），私人收藏家回收了数千件物品，但只有最壮观的物品被出版，扭曲了解释。对于英国，我们将制作所有河流发现的第一个概述，探索不断变化的河道的影响，与河流交叉点的关联，并将选定的组合与附近的陆地材料进行比较。我们将通过将河流材料与泉水和沼泽中的发现以及经证实的水神的分布进行比较，进一步了解河流材料的背景。我们将探讨各省之间沉积实践的差异，例如，英国河流生产的武器远远少于德国河流。特里尔还提供了一个难得的机会，第一次检查收藏家的动机。对于各个时期的河流发现，关于恢复情况和发现者的信息很少。德国的考古学家长期以来一直不信任业余爱好者，因为有些人提供的信息不可靠，甚至是伪造的，但英国考古学家经常与探测者密切合作，探索他们的动机和收集偏见。没有对河流发现物的收集者进行过类似的研究。我们已获得八位收藏家的许可，记录他们的发现，并记录他们的做法和动机。我们将回顾报纸对20世纪70年代“淘金热”的报道，并将其与目前泰晤士河上“嬉戏”的热潮进行比较。我们看到我们的培训作为灵感和创新的来源的理论和方法的差异，并将开发一个新的，综合的方法和理论框架，以改变罗马河发现的研究。这项研究将为古代文物沉积、还愿习俗和与过去景观的仪式接触提供新的线索，并产生一个详细的河流收集社会历史--与所有考古时期相关的发现。

From Excalibur to the Nibelungen, objects thrown into water have exercised the poetic and popular imagination, and finds from wet contexts represent a major archaeological research theme. For the Roman period, progress has been hampered by both theoretical and methodological issues. Our project will bring together approaches taken by German scholars, who usually favour ‘rational’ explanations for Roman river finds (such as rubbish disposal or accidental loss) and British archaeologists, who generally lean towards votive deposition. Regarding previous work, there are regional overviews available for Germany but not for Britain, while the UK applicants recently produced the first publication of an entire riverine assemblage in direct comparison with finds from a nearby settlement, highlighting how deposition on land and in water varied. We will apply lessons learned at Piercebridge to one of the largest and most significant riverine assemblages in the Roman world at Trier, a major urban centre with a sequence of well-documented bridges. Thousands of objects were retrieved by private collectors during periods of low water (1970s-90s), but only the most spectacular were published, skewing interpretation. For Britain, we will produce the first overview of all riverine finds, exploring the impact of changing river channels, associations with river crossings and comparing selected assemblages to nearby material on land. We will further contextualize the riverine material by comparing it to finds in springs and bogs and to the distribution of attested water deities. We will explore differences in depositional practices between provinces, with British rivers, for example, producing far fewer weapons than German ones. Trier also provides an exceptional opportunity to examine, for the first time, the motives of collectors. For river finds of all periods, there is very little information on the circumstances of recovery and the finders. Archaeologists in Germany have long distrusted amateurs as some provide unreliable or even falsifying information but British archaeologists often work closely with detectorists, exploring their motivations and collection biases. No equivalent research has ever been conducted on the collectors of river finds. We have secured permissions from eight collectors to document their finds and record their practices and motivations. We will review the newspaper coverage of the 1970s ‘goldrush’ and compare it to the current boom in ‘mudlarking’ on the Thames. We see the theoretical and methodological differences in our training as sources of inspiration and innovation, and will develop a new, integrated methodological and theoretical framework to transform research on Roman river finds. The research will shed new light on ancient artefact deposition, votive practices and ritual engagement with past landscapes as well as produce a detailed social history of riverine collecting -findings relevant to all archaeological periods.