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ROMAN ARCHAEOLOGY IN WALES. A tribute to V. E. NASH- WILLIAMS, by Sir MORTIMER WHEELER, C.I.E., M.C. Annual lecture broadcast in the Welsh Home Service of the B.B.C., 30th January, 1957. Price Is. In view of the great post-war awakening of interest among the general public in archaeological studies, it was appropriate that the theme of the 1957 annual lecture broadcast in the Welsh Home Service of the B.B.C. should be the contribution which the archaeologist has made to our under- standing of the Roman period in the history of Wales. Few people were better qualified to discuss this subject than Sir Mortimer Wheeler. He is probably the most celebrated archaeologist of his day, a scholar of established distinction who made, earlier in his career, important contributions to the subject which he was asked to review. Even in this short lecture we are conscious, at times, of that deep insight and breadth of understanding which we normally associate with his work. Sir Mortimer, significantly, does not dismiss the Roman occupation of Wales as the comparatively unimportant period that it is so often alleged to have been. He recognises, for instance, that the Roman period left its mark upon the "fabric of Welsh thought." The point is an important one, inasmuch as its repercussions can be detected in more than one sphere. Long after the withdrawal of Roman power, to give but one example, there lingered a wistful memory of a majestic and powerful civilization. The legends which were in time created by the focussing of this nostalgic con- sciousness upon the architectural remains of Roman civilization at Segon- tium, for example, formed, as Professor R. S. Loomis has shown, one signi- ficant thread in the complex development of the Arthurian legend and the Matter of Britain. It is characteristic of Sir Mortimer that he displays a commendable awareness of the wider implications of his theme. Yet, in spite of some characteristically perceptive observations, the lecture, which was planned as a tribute to the work of the late Dr. V. E. Nash-Williams, falls short of its express intent. It fails to give, in the last analysis, a balanced appraisal of the contribution which Dr. Nash-Williams made to our understanding of the Roman and sub-Roman periods in the history of Wales. More surprising, in view of Sir Mortimer's distinguished record, is the fact that the lecture contains a number of statements which are demonstrably inaccurate or misleading. Perhaps the most puzzling feature of the lecture is the theory which is postulated for the early christianization of Wales. Romano-British Christianity, we are reminded, was essentially the religion of the towns. And when, as the lugubrious Gildas informs us, the townsfolk of Roman Britain were forced to flee before the invading Picts, Irish and Saxons, and seek refuge in mountain fastnesses and caves, they brought elements of their urban religion with them. It was these refugees-so the argument runs- who made the really decisive contribution to the christianization of the essentially pagan regions of the highland west. Dr. Nash-Williams, however, has shown, in a careful, scholarly analysis in The Early Christian Monuments of Wales, that after the withdrawal of Roman forces Christianity entered Wales anew along the western sea-routes. On the evidence provided by the important features of epigraphy, decoration and monumental form, Dr. Nash-Williams was able to divide the early Christian-inscribed stones of Wales into three main groups. The first of these, consisting of simple inscribed stones from the fifth to the seventh century A.D., is of crucial importance in this connection. The language, lettering and, in some instances, actual allusions on the stones, show that they have unmistakable cultural affinities with early Christian memorials of the western Roman Empire, especially the Lyon and Vienne areas of Gaul. In his analysis Dr. Nash-Williams emphasised the westerly concentration of these stones, the heaviest incidence occurring in the three north-western and the three south-western counties, a fact which suggests that Christian