April/May '23 Lite Challenge : Boudicca's Temple

[Straf]

The town of Thetford in Norfolk, England has a long history. It used to be the capital of East Anglia, a Kingdom before England even existed. Two rivers converge here and there's a shallowing which gives the town it's 'ford' bit. The 'thet' bit comes from an old Germanic term for people and shares etymology with the 'deut' part of Deutschland (d and th were interchangeable, they are voiced and unvoiced version of the same (whatever the word is for speaking a certain sound)). It is also the name of one of the rivers. The people's river if you like.

Not far from the current town is Grimes Graves, a 5000 year old flint mine complex. A bit further up the road is a manmade lake that was a quarry. During the quarrying remnants of mammoths and woolly rhinoceros were found with evidence of deliberate butchering. These date back to 40,000 - 60,000 years ago. That's before even Bogie was born

The town itself boasts the birthplace and school of a certain rabble rouser called Thomas Paine.

The part I am most focused on, however, is the Iron Age period around the time of the Roman invasion of Britain. The stories of the Iceni, the tribe of people indigenous to this region, are written into history, not least Boudicca, a warrior queen who led the tribes of the East Anglian region into battle against many Roman strongholds. Evidence of a religious site was excavated here (I don't have the date of excavation to hand) that is dated to around the mid first century AD. Being in Iceni territory it is very possible this was used by Boudicca as a gathering site. I say possible speculatively because I have no evidence of 'Boudicca woz ere lol' spray painted anywhere.

My vision is to put the temple and all that over a modern looking map or something like that.

[Straf]

Sorry that's so small. I made a right mess of that.

[Bogie]

Thanks for joining the challenge Straf!! That is a very tiny map!

[Straf]

I'm just sort of scouting things out at the moment. The red bits are the sites of interest and it's against an Ordinance Survey map that I am reproducing here without permission so please remove if it's going to be a problem. I do believe this counts as fair use but if there's any grief just remove it.

[Straf]

Right, getting somewhere now - although it may not look like it

I've got the basic layout down on (virtual) paper so now I need to scale it up, add detail, relief shading, some graphics for the buildings and whatnot on the sites of interest. Then I may do a rough modern day map to sort of overlay onto it but with reduced opacity so the prehistoric stuff shows through.

Disclaimer: So landscapes change over time. Rivers change route because sciencey stuff happens. Wind erosion blows sand (and it is very sandy here) around. The forest around here was only planted about 100 years ago, before that it was mostly heathland with some pockets of woodland dotted about but most of the area was deforested even before the Bronze Age, so I've read. So I'm basing this map on current maps. I have traced elevation contours from OS maps, but where I know things didn't exist I've sort of 'fudged' them to fit in with the surroundings. For example there's a reservoir that likely didn't exist (although there may have been a lake of sorts - we have quite a lot of dolines round here, bodies of water that fill and empty will-nills regardless of local rainfall) so the contours for the mound around it has been omitted. The road, as far as I can tell, is roughly where it should be. It's an ancient track and part of a track from the North Norfolk coast to the south of England. Plus its actual whereabouts, lost to antiquity, is highly disputed so I can put it where I like Although given the modern existing roads (people just reused old paths throughout history) I've tried to give it as much sense as possible. The rivers are basically how they are today. There are a couple of bits that branch off where mills have been located but I'll leave those out. The main trajectories through the general landscape make sense.

TLDR: This is not going to be an accurate map - a lot of assumptions, guesswork and (un)artistic licence will be applied throughout. So there

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Edit: The ceremonial site is around 30 - 40 metres above the fort/ford area.

[Henkmet]

Oh, this is getting interesting. Looking forward to see how you make an overlay while avoiding information overload.

[Straf]

Right I've finally got time to sit down and get stuck into this mother. I've done a few things here and there - given the ancient trackway and the rivers a bit of body. I'm struggling with shading and whatnot to try to show the heigh differences but we'll see how it goes. Now I've got a temple and a fort to draw. The ditches/ramparts are going to be a major challenge I think.

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[Bogie]

Looking good Straf!

[Straf]

I had a bash at producing my own illustration for the site but it was going to take far too long so I've lifted one from some literature. The artist was Piers Millington-Wallace who I think is/was an archaeologist. The faded down map showing the town as it is currently is the property of Ordnance Survey and The Crown but I do think that this is a fair use.

So I'm calling this finished now.

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[Straf]

I could have spent an extra day on it (well not quite because I was in work then took my ex to A&E. 6 hours I was there before they decided she's staying in.