City of the Dead: Calleva Atrebatum

Page 2 of 8

• 1. The lost town
• 2. Celtic roots
• 3. Our introduction to Calleva
• 4. Early excavations
• 5. Immigrants from France?
• 6. The Roman town
• 7. 6th-century abondonment
• 8. Find out more
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Celtic roots

The Celtic place name, Calleva, can be translated as 'woody place', and investigations of the ancient pollen record confirm that the early settlement was surrounded by woodland, so timber for fuel and building was close at hand.

Apart from these, we have few further clues to help us understand what motivated the settlement of the Silchester promontory that was to develop so quickly as a regional centre.

'...the diversity and quantity of goods imported...is as impressive as at any subsequent period.'

Whatever its drawbacks, within a generation of its foundation in the second half of the first century BC, Calleva was a populous settlement, its core occupying an area of over 100 acres (almost 50 hectares), which was not significantly exceeded for the rest of its existence. The archaeological record shows evidence of wide-ranging contacts within Britain - as well as across the Channel to France and south to Italy, Spain and the Mediterranean - by the early first century AD.

Once again, the diversity and quantity of goods imported from afar is as impressive, if not more so, as at any subsequent period. Clearly, the distance of Calleva from the Thames was no major hindrance to the development of trade and exchange.

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