Roman Barracks Unearthed in England

COLCHESTER, ENGLAND—According to a Daily Gazette report, the block walls of a first-century Roman barracks have been found at a construction site in southeastern England, where archaeologists have been uncovering a series of buildings near an ancient Roman wall. “We expected the remains of the walls would be below those tessellated Roman floors we have been uncovering,” said Philip Crummy of the Colchester Archaeological Trust. The walls were in fact about three feet below the tessellated floors. Crummy said the original fortress and barracks were built by the men of the Twentieth Legion. “In A.D. 43, the emperor traveled to Britain to lead [the] army into Camulodunum where he took the submission of a number of British kings,” he explained. The structures will likely be damaged by pilings for a new building, and so were carefully recorded. The rest of the site was covered with a thick layer of sand. For more on Roman England, go to “What’s in a Name?”