Artefacts in Roman Britain: Their Purpose and Use

Roman Britain has given us an enormous number of artefacts, yet few books available today deal with the provinceÆs whole material culture as represented by these artefacts. This introduction, aimed primarily at students and general readers, begins by explaining the process of identifying objects of any period or material. Themed chapters, written by experts in their particular area of interest, then discuss artefacts from the point of view of their use. The contributors' premise is that every object was designed for a particular purpose, which may have been to satisfy a general need or the specific need of an individual. If the latter, the maker, the owner and the end user may have been one and the same person; if the former, the manufacturer had to provide objects that objects would wish to purchase or exchange. Understanding this reveals a fascinating picture of life in Roman Britain. Book jacket.

Lindsay Allason-Jones is Director of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Artefact Studies and Reader in Roman Material Culture at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, and has published eight books and over a hundred academic papers on themes related to the archaeology of the Roman Empire. She is the author of two previous textbooks, Women in Roman Britain (1989; 2nd edition 2005) and Daily Life in Roman Britain (2008).