Archaeology Magazine - June 1948 - 13

Summeriç48

77

in Britain, carrying with it important
as to its cultural contacts.

implications

The central mark proved to be a shallow trench
with deeper post-holes at corners and doorway
consisted of
(Figs. 3 and 4) ; the peristalith
single post-holes, closely set at the angles but
spaced out along the sides ; the continuous marks
were due to the replacement of old posts by new,
the new holes being dug close to or actually intersecting the old. The post-holes were not very
deep, and while this may have been due in part
to the reduction of the ground by cultivation it
also seems likely that the posts were in fact shallowly set, the building depending for its stability
on the way in which the parts were lashed or
otherwise held together.
More complete knowledge of the building therefore confirmed first impressions ; it must have consisted of a central shrine built with solid walls,
log-cabin fashion, with a pitched roof which probably extended outwards in one piece to span the
peristalith.
We have then a building showing a remarkable
resemblance to a Greek classical temple as part of
a native British settlement which dates from the
Bronze-to-Iron Age transition and can hardly a
the outside be later than 300 B.c.
Discovery

Yields

Secondly, are we to see here the origin of the
Romano-Keltic temple?
This name is applied to
an extensive series of small structures which show
essentially the same elements, though usually in
stone : a central shrine, with a peristalith in which
the columns are supported on a sleeper-wall, so
that as excavated the remains generally consist of
an inner and an outer wall parallel with one
HEATHROW

**PLAN

of the TEMPLE

Glues for Research

Two questions are raised by this discovery,
neither of which can be discussed fully here ; their
answers in any case depend on research which has
yet to be completed.
Firçt, how did this form, developed in stone in
such perfection by the Greeks, come to be used by
non-Mediterranean
barbarians?
Did they invent
it independently; or did they derive it from contact with the Mediterranean
The second
world?
explanation is at least as likely as the first, espe?
cially when it is remembered that a large element
in the Keltic art, which was being developed at
this time, is derived from Greek' art-forms, borrowed and modified by Keltic craftsmen.
Though
the circumstances are not quite the same, the borrowing. of an art-form might be paralleled by the
borrowing or imitation of an architectural form,
perhaps also through the medium of the Etruscans, by whom Greek products were transmitted
northwards to the Keltic lands.

Figure 3. Plan of the Heathrow
Temple, at London Airport, as excaWITHTHE TRENCHFORTHE CENTRAL
VATED,
SHRINE AND THE POST-HOLESFOR THE
ENCLOSING
COLONNADE.
STRIP
(THE SHADED
IS PART OF ANOTHERUNRELATEDSTRUCTURE.)
another.
Such temples are known in some numbers in the predominantly
Keltic areas of the
Roman Empire, a fact which (combined with the
absence of a recognizable prototype in Roman
architecture) has given them their name. We cannot suggest that the Heathrow temple is itself the
father of the Romano-Keltic
type; on general
grounds it is more likely that the latter was developed on the Continent and in northern Gaul in par-
Archaeology Magazine - June 1948

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Archaeology Magazine - June 1948
