Limes 2018

Home / Sessions / 26. Re-evaluating old excavations: are they worth it?

26. Re-evaluating old excavations: are they worth it?

Session organisers / Chairpersons:
Orsolya Láng, Aquincum Museum (E-mail: lang.orsolya@aquincum.hu)

Even though, excavations at most sites along the Roman Limes have been going on for 120-150 years now, publishing the several decades old excavation data and finds is always problematic. Different standards of evaluation were used to document excavations from the 19th century onwards ranging from short reports and traditional layer-description methods to writing long “stories” on drawings and find bags… How can data and finds of an early 20th c. excavation be used nowadays for example? Can these various types of documentations be integrated with the more recent researches and re-interpreted according to more modern methods? How can these data be re-evaluated? Could re-evaluation of old excavation documentations lead to the elimination of old topoi concerning a site? What are your experiences?

This section is rather planned to be a methodological one (with case studies), but extremely important, as large amount of data and finds from age-old excavations of Limes settlements still await processing.

Confirmed participants for this session:
  1. Nora Lombardini, Elena Fioretto: Archaeological remains along the Danubian Limes: through centuries of travelers to a new instrument for intercultural dialogue
  2. Philip Smither: Revisiting Richborough: A reassessment of the excavations of J.P. Bushe-Fox (1922-1938)
  3. Malcolm Lyne: A pharos-headed pin from Richborough and its implications
  4. Martin Wieland: Bridge over troubled water: The roman bridge in Cologne between old research and new questions
  5. Hans Jost Mergen: Niederbieber and early 19th-century research at the Upper-German Limes
  6. Simone Mayer: Digging in the archives – The 19th c. excavations of J. J. Schmid in Augusta Raurica
  7. Veronika Fischer: The barracks of „Ostkastell IIIb” in Straubing/Sorviodurum (Bavaria) and new knowledge about the cohors I Flavia Canathenorum milliaria sagittariorum
  8. Eva Steigberger: Hidden treasures? What you ask is not always what you get
  9. Orsolya Láng: Old excavation – new results: examples from the Aquincum Civil Town” – a keynote paper
  10. Eduard Nemeth: Different methods, different terms: understanding old excavations
  11. Simon James: The Roman military base at Dura-Europos: from archive and field to new synthesis
Posters related to this session:
  • Judit Pásztókai-Szeőke: A small secret of the sea-silk from Szemlőhegy (HU)