should roman bath be reburied?

[MrBern]

FULL STORY of Roman Bath for sale in UK

The remains of a Roman bath house, considered to be among the best preserved in the UK, are on the market for £300,000.

Owner Colin Henshaw said any buyer would need to be interested in history.

"The option of reburying the site for the benefit of future generations has been proposed by English Heritage as a sensible way forward," said Mr Henshaw.

 

[carebear]

If it is on private property it should be disposed of by the owner as they see fit.

If the Heritage group feels it should be preserved they need to raise the funds to buy it themselves.

 

[Diamondback]

Matt, IIRC that's a government agency, kinda like our National Register of Historic Places but with a whole lot more bureaucratic oomph behind it.

Any of our resident Brits care to doublecheck me on this?

 

[Baron Kurtz]

Well, no matter what the owner thinks or wants to do with his property, he cannot destroy it.

the bath house, a protected Ancient Monument,

Which means it cannot be altered, defaced, picked apart, robbed for stone or in any other way intentionally altered from its current state. This, i think, is the correct status for such a building/remains.

Reburying it seems a bit pointless. I don't see how that would "preserve it for future generations" any more than making it into a museum/educational site. Maybe a philanthropist will do just this. It has been very successfully done for some of the old Roman forts in Northumberland and southern Scotland. The roman period in Britain is a very important piece of our history, and sadly undertaught in schools.

(for example, can anyone name the emperor who finally "subdued" the Britons . . . what are the names of the two walls built in Scotland to hold back the hordes of sweaty northerners? This information should be at the tip of every Briton's lips.)

bk

 

[WildCelt]

what are the names of the two walls built in Scotland to hold back the hordes of sweaty northerners?

Hadrian's Wall and Antoine's Wall, of course.

 

[Micawber]

A protected / scheduled ancient monument should be just that - protected or at least have its interests overseen by the DCMS.

My hometown was the site of a large Roman settlement and subsquently the site of the first Christian martyrdom in England. A large portion of the Roman town was excavated in the '20's & '30's by Sir Mortimer Wheeler but in the end as they were so extensive they were in the main covered over again and the area turned into public parkland. The remains have been recorded in detail but are protected and remain available to future archaeologists. Remains of certain key buildings such as the amphitheatre, hypocaust, sections of town wall etc were left uncovered, they along with their associated museum, nearby abbey (built on the site of the martyrdom) and later nearby medieval town draw in thousands of tourists a year. I spent many a summer in my youth on digs with the local museum service and archaeological society. The field opposite where I grew up was the site of a Roman villa and the was a Celtic/Belgic settlement site nearby.

This is a complicated issue but once an archaeological site has been uncovered it needs protecting and maintaining to prevent damage from the effects of visitors and weather etc. Archaeological sites in towns and cities in the UK are routinely uncovered during building or development work and time is given over to researching and recording the various layers before development is permitted to continue. These days permission is generally only given to continue if developers have taken into consideration and made arrangements to accommodate the historic interests of the location.

Archaeological sites are often better protected by covering them up after excavating and recording has finished rather than leaving them exposed or worse turned into some pseudo theme park type visitor centre.

 

[carebear]

(for example, can anyone name the emperor who finally "subdued" the Britons . . . what are the names of the two walls built in Scotland to hold back the hordes of sweaty northerners? This information should be at the tip of every Briton's lips.)

I believe the Emperor was Trajan?

The wall's have already been listed.

Off to wiki to check.

 

[HadleyH]

Well, no matter what the owner thinks or wants to do with his property, he cannot destroy it.

bk

Exactly. :eusa_clap


for heaven's sake, preserve that Roman Bath!!! What next? ...the Coliseum?
this madness knows no frontiers :rage:

 

[John in Covina]

I am amazed at the idea of reburial. Seems strange to consider finding it, mapping, photographing and researching it but not making it available to the public to see so how.

 

[dhermann1]

Different countries have different laws governing this, but I believe that antiquities such as these are generally considered to be national treasures, and as such some sort of eminent domain would be in effect. Preserving them could be an enterprise of tremendous cost, whereas reburying is a very common practice to preserve remains that cannot be properly dug up. I hope he finds the funding to have this site properly excavated and preserved.

 

[dostacos]

reburied no, plowed under no either.

why rebury for FUTURE generations, they might plow through it without knowing it was there.

If I had the $$ I would want to set it up for all to see

 

[Micawber]

reburied no, plowed under no either.

why rebury for FUTURE generations, they might plow through it without knowing it was there.

If I had the $$ I would want to set it up for all to see

If the site has been excavated, researched and recorded in modern times then it is doubtful that the location will be forgotten. One has to bear in mind that England is rich with Roman sites.

 

[carebear]

If the person who owns the land wants to make it into a theme park or plow it under for daffodils, that should be his right.

If it is worth enough to someone to save, then he should be compensated for whatever value the property is worth to him to sell at full market price.

It isn't the landowner's fault something of historical significance showed up on his land. He doesn't deserve to have his property stolen whether it is an archeological treasure or a vein of gold.

 

[Matt Deckard]

Who knows, there could have been an ancient Disneyland in that spot whcih was plowed to build the bath. It's time those Brits got wih it and started showering anyhow.

 

[HungaryTom]

Archaeology vs property

It is strange how law of different countries differ.
In Hungary the land is owned by the owner but the discovered geological (minerals, caves, thermal waters, etc.) paleontological, archaeological wealth underneath is state property.
This means the higher interests of people overrule - the owner has not much say in that.
I also wonder how the UK a rich country can not afford to preserve that monument.
I mean Provincia Britannica is not as rich in such monuments as lets say Naples or Rome where one finds Roman ruins wherever one digs and there it is rather 'disturbing'.
Anyhow strange news for the weekend.

 

[PADDY]

No.

Just plain daft suggestion to rebury it.[huh]

 

[carebear]

I'm obviously not in favor of the destruction of historical artifacts.

But if something has value to someone who doesn't own it, whether monetary, sentimental, scientific or historical, then the owner of that object should be compensated for it at the amount they choose, not have it stolen from them.

Case in point, an earlier thread about the preservation of historic buildings. I'm all for that, but if the owner of the building wants to bulldoze it to increase the value of their property to them, then it is up to the preservationists to step up and make that owner an offer that makes preservation worthwhile.

Otherwise the whole concept of property ownership starts down the slope of irrelevency. And yes I'm aware we've started down that road with zoning regulations. There are practical and safety issues involved with zoning, although I'm not a big supporter of those, but in most cases those are in place before the property owner makes their purchase or the owner is able to vote on any changes on a local level.

Today it is "society" (which may or may not be an actual majority) that says a person who bought land in good faith cannot use that land as they see fit due to "historical artifacts" or "wetlands" or any number of other "public goods". Who's to know what will be called a "public good" tomorrow?

Seizure of property without compensation deemed sufficient by the property owner is theft, no matter how supposedly noble the cause or how robed in officialdom the thieves.

 

[Micawber]

Who knows, there could have been an ancient Disneyland in that spot whcih was plowed to build the bath. It's time those Brits got wih it and started showering anyhow.

Yes that's an idea, a shower might help in getting all that woad off.

 

[Alan Eardley]

This is done routinely with archeological sites to preserve them if current excavation and conservation is not possible. The assumption is that they will be re-opened and recorded in the future, possibly by archeologists with better techniques and technology that we have now. The counter argument is that the site has possibly already been spoiled by opening it in the first place.

I'm no friend of English Heritage after the 'Stonehenge wars' of the mid-1980s but I think we have to recognise that the UK has more prehistoric and historic sites (including Roman ones) that can be managed at any one time. Covering for recovery is a viable option under such conditions.

Alan