Saturday, November 8, 2008

8Nov2008: Day 166: Roman Palace and Chichester Cathedral

Today we went to two places in Chichester: a ruin of a Roman Palace and the Cathedral that was there. The Roman Palace was built around 75AD and it was destroyed by fire sometime after 350AD. The ruin was found after a ditch was being dug to lay a water main and some mosaic stones were unearthed in 1960. After carefully removing the centuries of earth they found the ruins of this amazing palace. The main surviving artifacts being the mosaic floors. The mosaics are some of the earliest ever found in England and are amazingly detailed even after so long being covered by dirt. Evidence of plow marks from later centuries are some of the things that have damaged the area, but even features from buildings that were there before the palace have also cause settling in the floors that the mosaics were lain on. There were spots where the mosaics had sunk in due to old wooden post holes for previous buildings that had been filled in. Also, the palace was built over an old drainage ditch which cause some of the floors to settle too. There was even a skeleton found where someone was buried in later centuries right into one of the floors.

The most famous mosaic is the one of Cupid riding a dolphin. They lifted this mosaic and others and found even earlier mosaics underneath that have been over paved. These are the ones that are the oldest in England. It is so interesting to think how such beautiful artwork was done so long ago and that evidence of it can survive this long buried. Another feature of the palace was that it had heated floors added at one point in its history...called a Hypocaust. It had a furnace room and hot gases would rise from the room into passages built under the floor and heat the floor.

After we convinced Makenna to stop running away from us so that she could climb up and down stairs, we left to go to the Chichester Cathedral. This is probably one of the more plain Cathedrals we have visited from a stone work and quantity of stone carvings, however, it has the most amazing walls of paintings of old bishops and kings that I have seen so far and its stained glass is extremely nice. The picture of the stain glass below is the entire story of the bible from Adam and Eve to Christ's Resurrection...sort of a story board of the Bible. The Cathedral is having its 900 year anniversary this year. It was one of the first Cathedrals built after the Norman invasion.


One other thing happened today that might be interesting. I was called something by my wife that I never thought I would here someone say to me: "You are most pathetic looking man ever!". I was not upset, but it certainly sounded like something a wife shouldn't say to her husband to the people walking by. I gave her a smug smile and she said "Well, you know what I mean!". I did, in fact, know what she meant, but that didn't stop me from playing with her a bit. It started a few minutes earlier with me asking her for the camera. She handed me the backpack and after a few moments of me sifting through the various pockets, I said to her that I could not find it. She immediately started thinking she left it at the Roman Palace on a chair and both of us were starting to have a bit of a panic attack. She started sifting through the bag herself and after about 1/2 second she pulls out the camera and yells: "You are the most pathetic looking man ever!"...so, I guess I am the most pathetic AT looking...at least I hope that is what she really meant...

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