valuable relic, a bronze eagle, was found; and this shows that the
soldiers must have deserted the place in a panic. Owing to the death of
Mr. Joyce, I have not been able to ascertain beneath which of the two
layers the eagle was found. The bed of rubble overlying the undisturbed
gravel originally formed, as I suppose, the floor, for it stands on a
level with that of a corridor, outside the walls of the Hall; but the
corridor is not shown in the section as here given. The vegetable mould
was 16 inches thick in the thickest part; and the depth from the surface
of the field, clothed with herbage, to the undisturbed gravel, was 40
inches.
[Picture: Fig. 10: Section within a hall in the Basilica of Silchester]
The section shown in Fig. 11 represents an excavation made in the middle
of the town, and is here introduced because the bed of rich mould
attained, according to Mr. Joyce, the unusual thickness of 20 inches.
Gravel lay at the depth of 48 inches from the surface; but it was not
ascertained whether this was in its natural state, or had been brought
here and had been rammed down, as occurs in some other places.
[Picture: Fig. 11: Section in a block of buildings in the middle of the
town of Silchester]
The section shown in Fig. 12 was taken in the centre of the Basilica, and
though it was 5 feet in depth, the natural sub-soil was not reached. The
bed marked concrete was probably at one time a floor; and the beds
beneath seem to be the remnants of more ancient buildings. The vegetable
mould was here only 9 inches thick. In some other sections, not copied,
we likewise have evidence of buildings having been erected over the ruins
of older ones. In one case there was a layer of yellow clay of very
unequal thickness between two beds of debris, the lower one of which
rested on a floor with tesser . The ancient broken walls appear to have
been sometimes roughly cut down to a uniform level, so as to serve as the
foundations for a temporary building; and Mr. Joyce suspects that some of
these buildings were wattled sheds, plastered with clay, which would
account for the above-mentioned layer of clay.
[Picture: Fig. 12: Section in the centre of the Basilica at Silchester]
Turning now to the points which more immediately concern us.
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