A RSG Zoom talk will take place on Tuesday 3rd February. James Bromwich, a renowned author of several Roman gude books including The Roman Remains of Southern France,  The Roman Remains of Brittany, Normandy and the Loire Valley: A Guide Book, and The Roman Remains of Northern and Eastern France: A Guidebook, will be talking to us on 'Commemorating the Dead: mausolea, towers and caskets. Contrast and curiosities ammong those able to afford burial memorials. This will compliment the RSG conferrence held in 2023 on 'Shining a Light on the Disposal of the Dead in Roman South-East England'.

Commemorating the dead: contrasts and curiosities amongst those able to afford burial monuments (Speaker's intrduction)

'In the south-west there is: one of the best preserved mausoleums in all France; a major feat of archaeological reconstruction; and a current excavation of a whole series of mausoleums. In addition, outside the Massif-Centrale, a striking feature of the landscape are distinctive, often isolated, square towers with pyramidal tops once reaching over 20 metres high. While cinerary urns are characteristic of the Roman era as a whole, the south-west of France can claim two distinctive groups one concentrated in the Limousin, the other in the central Pyrennees. The latter marked by their originality both in appearance and find sites. Oblong marble caskets, frequently decorated with strange figures once known locally as ‘little saints’, these are often associated with altars dedicated to gods found nowhere else'.

Roman Studies Group  members will be sent a Zoom link a week in advance. If you are a Surrey Archaeological Society member and would like to join RSG you can do so for free via the membership page on the website.

James has a new book on the Roman remains of South-West France due out later this year/early next year, to be published by Archaeopress.