England: An Oxford Archaeological Giude

Oxford University Press has published a series of archaeological guidebooks. So far, seven volumes have appeared: Greece, the Holy Land, Rome, Scotland, Southern France, Spain, and England. The series is edited by Barry Cunliffe, who is professor of European archaeology at Oxford University and one of the most famous British archaeologists. As a young man he took part in the excavations of Fishbourne Palace in southern England. The official guidebook about this site is written by him. He is also the author of the official guidebook about the Roman baths in Bath.

The volume about England is written by three scholars:

* Timothy Darvill

* Paul Stamper
* Jane Timby

Timothy Darvill is Professor of Archaeology in the School of Conservation Sciences at Bornemouth University; Paul Stamper is an Inspector of Ancient Monuments for National Heritage; while Jane Timby is a freelance archaeological consultant specializing in later prehistoric, Roman, and Saxon pottery.

Their archaeological guidebook for England covers more than 500 sites from twelve regions and from nine different historical periods.

The book begins with an historical introduction (68 pages). The main section of the book is divided into twelve chapters, which correspond to the twelve regions. Within each chapter, the sites are listed in alphabetical order.

The book ends with a chronological survey, a glossary, a list of museums, an annotated bibliography, and a list of relevant addresses (including websites).

The index covers only the sites. Therefore it is impossible to find important persons or topics in the index, which is a shame.

The book is illustrated with several black and white photographs and several drawings, partly maps of some cities, partly maps of some sites.

Scattered around the book there are some sidebars which cover different topics which are relevant for English archaeology and history: the druids, the Roman army, the Black Death, etc.

Some of the sites mentioned in this book I have visited myself. One way to evaluate this book is to see what it says about the sites I know from personal experience. The result of this investigation is positive as well as negative:

It is positive, because I have not found any false information about these sites. It is negative, because the descriptions of the sites are too brief. This statement is valid for nearly the whole book. Too many sites receive only half a page or even less. Only a few sites receive more space than this, but they are the exception: York (4 pages) and London (6 pages).

Some descriptions are accompanied by an illustration, a photo or a drawing, but far from all. There are 200 illustrations, but there are more than 500 sites. Therefore you do not really get a feel for each individual site when you read the descriptions in the book.

I had the volume about Spain with me on a trip to Spain. It was very useful. I had the volume about southern France with me on a trip to southern France. It was very useful. Accordingly, I had great expectations for this volume about England. Unfortunately, they were not fulfilled.

This is not a guidebook which can guide you in each archaeological zone. Rather it is a dictionary, which can tell you how many archaeological sites there are in the different regions of England. But who needs this?

In my opinion, the authors have made a serious misjudgement by including too many sites. They should have limited the number to 100 or maybe 200. If they had done this, they would have been able to give a decent description of each site and to place an illustration or two with each site.

I cannot understand why the general editor or the publisher did not react when they saw the manuscript of this book. The authors should have been told to change their approach.

Their assignment was to produce a guidebook, not a phonebook. Sometimes, of course, a phonebook is quite useful, but who wants to read a phonebook?

Another puzzle: the authors have been given a lot of space. Why? The book about southern France has 211 pages. The book about Spain has 328 pages. The book about Rome has 464. But this book is even longer. It has 493 pages. The introduction is numbered with Roman numerals. It goes to page xxvii. If you count these pages as well, we have more than 500 pages. Why is this volume so thick? Is it a case of patriotism?

Apparently, the quality of the volumes in this series differs a good deal. This is strange. Usually, all volumes in a series will have the same quality.

I can recommend the volume about Spain and the volume about southern France. But I see no reason to recommend this volume about England.

* * * 

 

Timothy Darvill, Paul Stamper and Jane Timby,

England: An Oxford Archaeological Guide,

Oxford Paperbacks, 2002, xxvii + 493 pages

 

* * *