Newsletter 51

Booze Cruise Disaster

Hundreds of litres of wine, dating from 500BC, have been discovered in a wreck at a secret location off southern France. The Italian wine is contained in 800 terracotta amphorae - vessels designed to hold the drink. Although it is still alcoholic, experts say it is not drinkable. 'It is a phenomenal amount of wine for a ship to be carrying at that period,' Luc Long, from France's Department of Underwater Archaeological Research told the Daily Express. 'The wine was usually reserved for the upper classes and Celtic princes. It was also traded for metals. There was enough there to make a lot of people very drunk.' Each amphora holds between 26 and 37 litres of wine. The amphorae themselves are incredibly rare. It is thought the 65ft wreck, found off the coast of Marseille, was an Etruscan trading vessel that sank while heading from Tuscany to France's Mediterranean coast. Mr Long added: 'It is without doubt the best ancient ship ever found and will enlighten us about building techniques of the day.'

New Websites

'Dig News' - is a new site by Chester City Council, cataloguing the archaeological activities in and around the City of Chester and published in a monthly newsletter form. This month's issue features a major city centre excavation and recent discoveries at both the Cathedral and Castle. The URL is: http://www.chestercc.gov.uk/heritage/archaeology/dig_news.html

http://www.LQQK.co.uk is a new site by Brian Elsey specifically designed for Wiganers. It is a wonderful site, full of pictures (old and new), local news, quizzes, history (timeline and documents) and much more. If you get a chance, it's well worth a visit.

Roman Road Prospects

If you are wondering what has happen to our new resistivity meter, don't worry it is on its way. I have spoken to Bob Randall of TR System Ltd who are building it. The machine is ready but the hold up is on the frame, which is being made by a subsidiary company. Ill health at this firm has cause the delay but Bob assures me that we should have the machine within the next couple of weeks.

Meanwhile we have been building up a catalogue of potential sites for investigation with the meter. These include the supposed Roman Road at Coppull (with the help of Chorley Arch. Soc.) and sections of the route from Wigan to Manchester. Joe Russell has studied this road in detail for some time and has identified sites at Tyldesley and Worsley. Last week Mark Heywood told me about a possible site on the outskirts of Atherton, near where he lives. He has been studying a recent aerial photo of the area around his house, (by the way, www.multimap.com is another new site which is proving useful for prospecting, just by typing in the post code the required photo comes up), when he thought he could see something. After I sent him the relevant section from the First Edition OS map of 1849, he was amazed to find the markings corresponded exactly. The route marked on this map was established in the early 19th century by the Rev. Edmund Sibson, Minister of Ashton-in-Makerfield, who traced it all the way from Wigan to Manchester, as well as the routes running North and South of Wigan.

At the next meeting we will be able to discuss a date for a site visit. If you are interested please let me know at the meeting.

Next Meeting

Wednesday 6th March at the BP Centre (Scout HQ) in Greenough Street, at 7.30 pm as usual. This month's speaker is Derek Pierce from the South Trafford Archaeological Group, who will be talking about ancient pottery. Derek is presently running the Roman excavations at High Legh near Knutsford (reported in Newsletter 48). He will be bring along a selection of pottery from the various excavations he has been involved in over the years.

Hope to see you there - B.A.