Learning about Death and Burial in Roman Times
Bringing History to Life:Learning about Death and Burial in Roman Times - The Roman ‘Reiter’ Tombstone from Lancaster YAC Kendal, Cumbria, Dec 16th, 2006
In November 2005, a rare yet extremely well preserved Roman ‘Reiter’ - (German: rider, horseman) tombstone was found in the City of Lancaster and when, a year later, it became official that finally funding had been secured for it, it was clear that it wouldn’t leave the front pages of the local newspapers for quite a while.
Because of the media attention and craze it generated I thought it would be a good idea to have children look at it in more detail and so I developed a 20-30min session for Years 3&4 children which I then did at a local primary school based in the village of Quernmore, not far from Lancaster itself.Firstly, I wanted the children to look at the tombstone very closely (not all tombstones are as well preserved as this and it really offers lots of detail to discuss!) and match the object identifications I’d written next to the picture with the actual objects carved on the tombstone. I then told them that, since red paint had been found in the grooves of the lettering, it was possible that the entire tombstone was painted in more or less bright colours (I left it to the children’s imagination exactly how colourful!). Obviously, as soon the first boy asked me if we was allowed to draw blood dripping off the barbarian’s head and the Roman soldier’s sword I knew that we were approaching a ‘bloodbath’!
The last task was to think of what else the family and friends could have chosen to have depicted on the deceased soldier’s tombstone – and we ended up with pictures of him beheading other barbarians, the soldier and his grieving wife and daughter, as well as the soldier fighting lions in the Coliseum in Rome!
See pictures of this session in our image gallery!
