Ancient finds that inspired Hollywood blockbusters

The Council for British Archaeology (CBA) runs its annual festival from July 15-30 and this year’s theme is archaeology and creativity. This festival is the UK’s biggest celebration of archaeology and it ties in well with our summer blockbuster exhibition Hollywood Rome.
The film industry is perhaps one of the greatest exponents of creativity with archaeology. It has been mining the archaeological record since the silent era of movie making, with The Last Days of Pompeii (1913), Cleopatra (1917) and Ben-Hur (1925) all based on earlier novels.
Much of the fascination with ancient Rome was sparked with the discovery of the ruins of Pompeii. Edward Bulwar-Lytton’s novel the Last Days of Pompeii published in 1834 had spawned eight cinematic versions by 1959. It tapped into a fascination with natural catastrophes, something that still draws us towards the story of this ill-fated city.
However, we don’t have to look so far away for archaeological inspiration. Thirty years ago this year, a homeowner from Venford Close on the Hookhills estate in Paignton unearthed a body whilst trying to lay a patio. The find had an associated stone arrowhead and was initially recorded as prehistoric.
On closer examination and using radio-carbon dating, this burial was eventually dated to between AD 230 – AD 390. This is a rare find for Torbay of a later Romano-British period inhumation burial. This remains the most complete Romano-British skeleton yet found in Devon.
This burial of a young woman aged between 15 and 25 years is something of a mystery, as the closest known settlement with finds from this period is Lower Well Farm, Stoke Gabriel, around 2km to the west. It is likely that another settlement existed much closer and was destroyed by the housing development or that she lies on the edge of a still undiscovered settlement. Finds of coins, pottery, pewter and copper alloy items of Roman date now suggest occupation all around Torbay.
The burial itself gives us some important clues to what life was like for the Romano-British inhabitants of Torbay. The young woman was buried with oysters that could have been part of the burial ritual. We have evidence from other local sites that these shellfish could be gathered in this locality. Oysters can be found in vast numbers on Romano-British sites and Britain was well known as an exporter of oysters to the Empire - Julius Caesar even admired British pearls.
Her teeth and bones revealed a diet rich in carbohydrate and protein and stable isotope evidence shows that despite living and dying so close to the sea, marine food made up no more than 10% of her diet.
This fits with the evidence found at Ipplepen, Lower Well Farm and Rocombe Farm where the remains of cattle, goat, pig, and deer have been found. The Hookhills woman was from a mixed pastoral and agricultural farming community that to a limited extent still gathered foodstuffs from the surrounding area.
The Hookhills burial can be seen on display with other Roman period archaeological items from the Museum’s collections in Hollywood Rome. The exhibition references many of the archaeological discoveries and ancient history that has inspired a century of film and television making.
The Museum is open Monday to Saturday throughout the summer.