A Royal Palace Revisited
Feb. 5th, 2026 06:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustOn Tuesday we went to a North-East England Research seminar - that's what the invitation calls it - in the History Department, to hear Sarah Semple speaking about recent archaeology work at Yeavering. This was an update of a lecture which we had already attended virtually, courtesy of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne, as I noted in an (undated) addendum to my description of a visit to the Ad Gefrin museum.
We've made several visits to the History Department recently, so I thought I was prepared to find my way through the warren: it's a cluster of old houses in the North Bailey, and ypu have to choose the correct staircase at entry level, because they don't communicate at the top. We ignored the obvious staircase, and found our way through to the other one, which we climbed. The only sign of life at the top was alurking student, who denied that anything was happening there. Back downstairs, then, and upstairs again, knowing that there was no seminar room here, and found the office of the lecture organiser: who accompanied us back downstairs, and up a third staircase... Attendance at the seminar was much smaller than I anticipated: which was cause and which effect I could not say, but if they actually wanted an audience, maybe someone on reception, or failing that, an information board?
As it was, we were five: the lecturer, her associate, the organiser,durham_rambler and me; someone else who was clearly familiar to the team turned up halfway through. This could have been awkward, but in fact made for a comfortably informal session, and I got to ask the question which had so puzzled me last time round. The original excavations in the 1950s had identified an extraordinary 'grandstand' structure - imagine someone had seen a Roman amphitheatre, and decided they wanted one of those, but made of wood, and not the full arc, just a segment): when I saw the model in the museum I thought someone was hallucinating. Could the more recent dig cast any light on this? It hadn't been mentioned in the Antiqs' version of the lecture, but in this update there were descriptions of the postholes on which the model was based. So I asked, was this thing really as bizarre as it looked? And was relieved to get the answer, yes. And watch this space, because dating is still in progress.
We went out to lunch, at Turkish Kitchen, where we ordered All The Mezze:
We've made several visits to the History Department recently, so I thought I was prepared to find my way through the warren: it's a cluster of old houses in the North Bailey, and ypu have to choose the correct staircase at entry level, because they don't communicate at the top. We ignored the obvious staircase, and found our way through to the other one, which we climbed. The only sign of life at the top was alurking student, who denied that anything was happening there. Back downstairs, then, and upstairs again, knowing that there was no seminar room here, and found the office of the lecture organiser: who accompanied us back downstairs, and up a third staircase... Attendance at the seminar was much smaller than I anticipated: which was cause and which effect I could not say, but if they actually wanted an audience, maybe someone on reception, or failing that, an information board?
As it was, we were five: the lecturer, her associate, the organiser,
durham_rambler and me; someone else who was clearly familiar to the team turned up halfway through. This could have been awkward, but in fact made for a comfortably informal session, and I got to ask the question which had so puzzled me last time round. The original excavations in the 1950s had identified an extraordinary 'grandstand' structure - imagine someone had seen a Roman amphitheatre, and decided they wanted one of those, but made of wood, and not the full arc, just a segment): when I saw the model in the museum I thought someone was hallucinating. Could the more recent dig cast any light on this? It hadn't been mentioned in the Antiqs' version of the lecture, but in this update there were descriptions of the postholes on which the model was based. So I asked, was this thing really as bizarre as it looked? And was relieved to get the answer, yes. And watch this space, because dating is still in progress.We went out to lunch, at Turkish Kitchen, where we ordered All The Mezze:
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Date: 2026-02-06 04:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-02-06 12:40 pm (UTC)