Littledean Temple

15/10/2024

Another probable Roman period stone head from the June excavation found by Robin Holley while excavating the neolithic pathway crossing below the apse of the nymphaeum. Other finds in June and September included two more Middle Bronze Age cremations, numerous pits, some with sponge fossils and inscribed stones. A fragment of Roman tegula roof tile, a large sherd of possible North African redware.

17/06/2024

This post is from the Leverhulme Trust, who have funded the "Cults of the Head?" Project. The Attached photo is a snap shot of the Leverhulme Trusts 2023 Annual Review. The link is to the specific place in the review where we are featured.

"Ian Armit and his team examine the meaning and significance of a remarkable collection of carved stone heads in the context of vernacular art, cosmology and religion in the early centuries CE:https://www.flipsnack.com/leverhulmetrust/2023-annual-review/full-view.html?p=20"

12/06/2024

Dr. Reb Ellis- Haken" Sometimes it's really hard to see the faces on these heads with 2D imaging alone, so we'll also be using RTI to try and bring out the detail. In the meantime, can you see the face on this head?"

11/06/2024

We examined the west side of the Roman plinth foundation in the apse in advance of site backfilling during the last week of May. This produced another unurned cremation burial (Cremation Burial Pit No 17). At the base of the pit below the bone and ash was another fossil which this time rather than the typical sponge fossils appears to be an urchin fossil. Also there were four charred sloe pips amongst the cremated bone and 32 (recovered) fragments of burnt flint. Whether these are from a flint artefact which subsequently disintegrated after burial, as a result of being in the funeral pyre, or from flint knapping waste put in the burial we don't know. Although there was a principal concentration of cremations we have found since 2020 a number of cremations generally across the site as well as numerous pits with similar artefacts but no bone identified, suggesting the cemetery was well spread out. With other cremated bone find spots from the pyre area we have found over twenty find spots of cremated bone and more than 30 pits in total with bone and/or Bronze Age artefacts. As yet there is nowhere else in the Forest of Dean from where Bronze Age unurned cremations have been found. In fact unurned cremations are very rare, in part due to the difficulty of identifying them without urns. Given the consistency of grave goods finds and the generally small amounts of bone in each burial it is looking increasingly likely that the site is a memorial ground, where some pits had stone markers, suggesting they were 'cenotaphs'. The discovery of these cremations is entirely due to Robin Holley's archaeological expertise (I have failed to find any!!). The cremations were Carbon 14 dated by SUERC at Glasgow University to the 13th century BC. The burials are small to very small amounts of human bone suggesting the majority was scattered on the wind. We don't know however whether the burials were adults or children. I attach some photos from this cremation pit.

10/06/2024

The Temple site is now open again for pre booked small group 2 hour tours during June and July this summer. £20 per person, two people minimum, six people maximum.Please email me for details. [email protected]

09/04/2024

The Total Eclipse of the Sun is a good point at which to post a theory I had last week. The impact of yesterday's eclipse on humankind must surely make us think about the effect this phenomenon had on our ancestors in prehistory. It seems implausible they didn't leave some record of it. In Chaco, New Mexico rock art showing a circular petroglyph with looping streamers is identified as one such record of an eclipse. Many sites now are seen as Late Neolithic/Bronze Age observatories where people collected to observe the celestial events. I have looked more closely at the incised small portable stones from Littledean and wonder whether some of these do actually record eclipses. One little incised tablet which we have assumed is a sun cross is quite clumsily drawn or is it? The circle at top and bottom is double. The rays coming off the circle twist at the bottom. This is surely not a simple depiction called by specialists a sun cross or solar wheel but the depiction of a solar eclipse with corona and flares. I have looked at a few other 'sun/solar' symbol type artefacts we have found and I wonder if perhaps these are in fact the record of solar eclipse events in the Bronze Age. BA.11 has residual traces of rays coming of a possible corona depiction. BA.17 has two circles and thin lines emanating from the bottom, evidently twisting. These are a few of quite a number of incised stones found on the Littledean site with what are generally called solar symbols. The initial reaction that SBP.1 is a sun cross may be mistaken as these images have been found to have often been reworked. The line crossing the sun appears to actually have three tails on its left side and does not connect with the edge of the orb. The most complex and finest incised solar image from Littledean I have previously identified as a possible sun boat image. Now I wonder if it is also representing a particularly striking eclipse. It has a heavily 'cup marked' circular centre surrounded by an outer circle with pronounced rays. It is complicated however by the curving 'ladder' on the right hand side and the apparent horizontal ladder with leaning rungs across the bottom. Ladders are recurring themes generally assumed to depict ladders connecting earth and heaven in Christian iconography, evolving from a more ancient symbolism. I shall continue this theme in the next post.

07/02/2024

Reb posted this one on 2nd February "It appears as though we don't just have human imagery at Dean Hall Roman Temple, but zoomorphic imagery too. We'd love to know what you think this curious creature might represent! "

26/01/2024

Dr. Reb Ellis-Haken has posted on Twitter with this taster of photo recording quality. "Happy New Year from “Cults of the Head?”! We will be busy this winter as we continue to 2D and 3D record the heads from Dean Hall Roman Temple. Here's a sneak peak for "

22/12/2023

Happy Christmas to all.
This is an example of the quality of the photographic recording we can expect for the Littledean stone carved Celtic heads from Dr. Ellis-Haken at York University. Head No.1. The detail is superb down to the individual sand grains in the sandstone. This head was excavated 6/10/2018 from Pool 4a and was the first to be found from the temple site.The head had a coating of red ochre which still survives on parts of the head.

12/11/2023

A fabulously evocative and atmospheric drone shot of the Severn horseshoe bend taken by Dr. Ellis-Haken.
The silver torc around Barrow Hill inland from Arlingham, just visible in the mist. Picture taken from above the temple site.

25/10/2023

The Twitter ('X') handle for the project is

Here are a few preliminary photos from Dr. Reb Ellis-Haken at York University. Head 32 is the project's current mascot. It is a stunning piece of Celtic facial sculpture. Reb has identified Head 57 as a close parallel with the bobbed hairstyle of a recurring female figure seen as high status and seen from Southern Britain and the Near Continent, particularly as depicted on the Rynkerby cauldron from Denmark. Although H57 was a residual find, it came from the pathway at the east entrance of the earliest circular wooden shrine, surrounding Pool 1. As I mention under H57 in the Celtic Heads Gallery this fragment is from what would have been the largest face mask by far from the site. It begs the question, where is the rest of it and why was it smashed?
The Marlborough Bucket: A new analysis of
imagery within the artistic context of Late Iron
Age Southern Britain
by Rebecca L. Ellis-Haken

15/10/2023

Dr. Ellis-Haken has collected all the stone heads recovered from the temple site at Littledean during the past eight years of excavations and they are now all at the University of York. Her photographic work will commence very soon to produce a wonderful visual record of these artefacts, as an early stage in her research project. We shall soon be able to see her photographic work on Instagram. It is very exciting to know that a photographic specialist in recording archaeological artefacts is undertaking this work, which will allow us to view these heads in a more realistic way.

29/09/2023

Dr. Ellis-Haken, the Research Associate at York University made her first visit yesterday to familiarise herself with the site and cast her eyes over some of the finds material and we had a great and productive first day of meeting. Today Robin Holley on the penultimate day of his excavations and six years of excavating at Littledean proved that the prehistoric walkway did connect the springhead to the putative altar c.15 metres to the west. Amongst a group of votive type finds he found an extraordinary 'ladder' stone. This sandstone tablet is worked only on the front side and is remarkably uniform in shape. It is the best unequivocal example of a ladder stone from the site, of which there are a number. It has the pictorial elements of a ladder, a platform and a possible rising/setting sun image. The imagery is generally considered to be "the stairway to heaven" and associated with death and is a symbolic image seen all around the world. The picture here is the tablet in its unwashed state, which is as it will be conserved for the time being, the silt having been removed by hand. As the image shows it is naively simplistic and difficult to believe it is most likely at least 4000 years old!

26/09/2023

Robin Holley and I have been excavating and recording this week. We are now in levels with very few finds, but this never deters Robin's magic trowel. Here is an intriguing one from the putative neolithic walkway between the springhead and western altar. The first and oldest pokemon head on the planet, perhaps c.4500 - 5000 years ago!! Horizontal big ears, eyes, nose and mouth engraved on a Porosphaera globularis (sponge fossil)

21/09/2023

The research project on the heads has started which is fantastic. It has taken a few years to get here. We would never have had a chance of doing it and funding the work had it not been for Ian Armit, professor and Chair of Archaeology at York University, whose support,experience and expertise resulted in his successful bid for grant aid from the Leverhulme Trust. Ian is a leading specialist in the field of the cultural archaeology of the European Later Bronze and Iron Ages. He also runs the Commios project which is conducting the first concerted programme anywhere in the world of genome-wide ancient DNA analysis on Iron Age populations. Dr. Rebecca Ellis-Haken has been appointed to the post of Postdoctoral Research Associate to study the heads from Littledean and is setting up the first part of the project at the moment. Reb's speciality is animal symbolism of the Celtic La Tene period. "Her PhD focused on the use of genuinely figurative animals in the La Tène period art of England and Wales (c. 400BC - AD100). As part of the Leverhulme grant, Reb's work on the Littledean heads will be regularly updated on Twitter and Instagram to inform both academic and public interest. So it is no longer under wraps and the "Cult of the Head? The Dean Hall temple carvings in contex" has kicked off. Whoopee this is all so exciting. So much is down to Robin Holley and Bryn Walters' and everone else's support these past 5 years. Robin has given his untiring expertise and research to the excavations at Littledean since 2018. We can't wait to meet Reb in a week's time. Thanks also to all my friends and family who have supported this project.

28/08/2023

Can anyone help please with a geology question? We have reached a level during the excavation at the Littledean Temple site which has quantities of broken pieces of red/white and grey green rock, which appears to be gypsum. The geology is Old Red Sandstone and the elevation is circa 174m. The pieces are coming from a band of hard red clay or marl lying between bands of ORS.
Is this the same as Garden Cliff or is the elevation too great for the occurrence of the gypsum geology. This is taxing us as if it is natural it may be significant to the archaeology and if it is not natural and has been brought in it is significant.
Any advice would be very gratefully received!!

02/07/2023

I have been quiet for a bit on news from the dig due to shifting interpretations. This is not an issue as for example remains in Northern Portugal were considered by academics until 1930 as either "sacrificial altars, sanctuaries, bread ovens, pottery kilns, metal workshops and slaughterhouses."! They then became accepted as sacrificial altars used for funerary rites involving the cremation of bodies. Now they are universally accepted as Saunas! Which brings us to Littledean. Since January we started excavating what appeared to be a pool attached to an altar structure at its west end. Then after exposing impressive earthen remains it became a 'mortuary structure' of a neolithic earthen long barrow. Then after realising the artefacts ruled out that interpretation it swung back to a rather complex pool and wetland feature until a very interesting hearth area was found within the pool! Obviously hearths and pools don't go together. After the best part of excavating through June it has become apparent that we are looking at the remains of a linear pool which had started as a manufactured water system probably with one small cold spring fed plunge pool and another pool possibly a warm water pool heated by fire hot rocks. Next to this warm pool a hearth pit stood on top of an area of bank below the outer retaining bank of the pool. The hearth still had flame blackened stones in situ and charcoal. The north side/wall of the hearth was baked a grey white, while the south side wall was missing. Now here's the thing, in the clay silts and in the compact floor of the pool at the base on the south side of the hearth were white gritty pieces. These have been sampled and dried and appear to be the same fired clay as in the hearth pit. Thus when the system went out of use parts of the hearth were washed down the bank by weathering into the pool where they became covered in clay silts. Ergo the hearth and the pool are contemporary. We have been aware of Fire Cracked Rocks (FCR) for ages but now I have examined more closely the large area of stone backfill and sure enough broken rocks bear all the hallmarks of intense heat. So now the complex linear water system with pools, feeder channels and outfall channels is all shaping up as a prehistoric health centre. Work will continue on this to try and establish the extent of the eastern pool (possible warm pool). For those visitors who have been led to believe it was a neolithic long barrow my apologies. For those who would like a tour of these remarkable remains and the temple remains of course please book as normal. Either through website or to me [email protected]
https://littledeanhall.wordpress.com/guided-tours/
Oh yes what date are the remains? Well the contexts and the finds suggest possibly Early Bronze Age. Did they have such places in the Bronze Age? Well yes apparently they did, particularly the example on Westray in Orkney, but it is generally difficult to see proof of this and most sites remain speculative. The suite of features at Littledean may be just the evidence needed to make prehistoric saunas more certain. I attach a picture of the western half of the linear pool and interior passage way. This will now be backfilled as we continue to excavate the eastern half where the pivotal evidence lies.

25/06/2023

Archaeological work at the temple site is almost finished (famous last words). We hope to find the south edge of the pool before the end of autumn but a bit slow now with the heat and baked hard surfaces. Measuring and recording and trying to decide which samples should go for carbon 14 dating. We now have plenty of small finds to study the dating of contexts. We cannot deny the neolithic and bronze age finds but it is looking increasingly likely that a lot of the material was redeposited during the pre Roman Celtic period. We have run hot and cold on neolithic earthen mortuary structure versus a linear pool with planned walkways and after targetting specific areas the pool now prevails. putting a date on it is challenging and will depend on whether sufficient organic material can be salvaged from the clay sediments for dating.
The tours I'm doing at the moment have an emphasis on the stone heads, before they will all be taken to York University for the research project.
Please contact me as soon as possible for tours in July.
[email protected]

Send a message to learn more

15/06/2023

Rebecca and Nat had an enjoyable tour last week. "Thank you so much for showing us your site yesterday. I was overwhelmed by it all and it will take me a while to assimilate. it will certainly help my own research and thoughts, as it is so all encompassing. We both enjoyed so much."
When I drive over the hilltop at Littledean Hill on my way to the temple site, the view of the Severn horseshoe bend always fills me with a feeling of wellbeing. I arrive at the site and wonder what the 'dig' session will bring. I visit Old Jack, the massive old chestnut tree and feel more wonder and every time I just stop and stare at the remains and wander around the site, almost as if my mind needs new validation that all the thousands of years of human emotion and history is there before my eyes. Every time another artefact is found I'm filled with awe at holding something created thousands of years ago. These are the experiences I try to share and impart to visitors. This year it has been particularly notable how we all are astonished by being able to see these artefacts up front and in the hand. New research from California confirms just how important the sensations of AWE are to us. These sensations come in spade loads at the temple site and for me, to see people's emotions on being confronted with the view of the horseshoe bend of the river, the old chestnut trees, the remains and the artefacts is wonderful.

13/06/2023

The macehead found last Tuesday the 6th by Robin can be defined as a 'pebble' macehead. These date anytime from the Mesolithic hunter gatherers and are generally referred to as hammers. However Robin's find has the diagnostic straight sided cylindrical shaft hole and ground facets which categorically define it as a macehead rather than a hammer and probably dates within the Neolithic period. We can take a chance on the charred cereal grains being contemporary and get a carbon 14 date or they could be any time. The straight vertical edges of the small pit in which the macehead was placed provided the ideal conditions for grains being carried down the 'runway' of the vertical edges by worms, possibly having already followed millennia of burrow holes. C14 dating is not all its cracked up to be.

07/06/2023

Another extraordinary day on site at Littledean. Until 1 o'clock Robin had been quiet. I was attempting to identify the south end of the feature without a great deal of success. Robin called me over to have a look at a strange shaped yellow coloured artefact emerging from a context close to where yesterday's macehead came from. Neither of us had an explanation for what it was. After carefully lifting it out and a gentle wash, a highly polished and etched artefact emerged with a single spiral for an eye. With the macehead there was also a flint fossil nodule shaped like a pointed bird's beak, adding to three other 'bird head' shaped fossil nodules. These appear to possibly represent heads of water birds. Aquatic birds are central to Celtic iconography since the Early Bronze Age and, given the Egyptian representations, possibly since the Neolithic. This artefact however has the same polishing and decorative striations as two maceheads, including one possibly made from the same rock type. Given the proximity of contexts and the shared layer the maceheads and this artefact are probably broadly contemporary. At 17.2 x 4.6 cms this is by far the largest object of the group. It has traces of a blue pigment and lustrous polishing. The 'eye' is a spiral which has been re worked. There are traces of facets and a bevelled edge and the flat rims have a feathered effect and areas of glossed polishing. The underside may have had a more distinct shaping of a bird's head. The spiral appears to be an eye and the point the beak of a bird. All parts of the artefact demonstrate it is complete but has clearly seen a 'long life'. It is the fifth artefact which appears to represent the head of a water bird. The remains below the Roman temple appear to be what we originally expected them to be, i.e. a pool and it looks like the interpretation as a barrow can not be sustained. Any ideas on this artefact will be welcomed.

07/06/2023

Robin Holley excavating yesterday found another macehead. The number of maceheads found and the contexts indicate that the banks/'walls' which have a similarity to burial structures of the neolithic period are more likely to be revetments of a pool and possible walkways. Five maceheads recovered from the features make it very unlikely this was a barrow as maceheads are not an artefact associated with Early Neolithic Earthen long barrows. Excavation continues in an attempt to resolve the earliest remains. Mike excavating nearby exposed the first clear evidence of a hearth at the base of the neolithic feature but no sign of artefacts.

01/06/2023

This is a new picture of the Littledean Pollisoir which improves on the detail of the picture on the website. There are several different layers of polishing marks and grooves. The very fine lines at left of boulder appear to have been worn down by polishing hollows, which are quite flat. The deep grooves are typically like those seen in France at Paley (Seine and Marne) where axes have been ritually polished. The Littledean pollisoir is important as it had not seen the light of day since the Roman period and unlike many exposed pollisoirs has not been compromised by medieval and later polishing by casual observers.

31/05/2023

It was a lovely day on Monday for showing Nikki,Dawn, Ruth and Clare around the remains. It was an all day tour with a bring your own picnic. This worked very well rather than going to the Belfry which tends to break the thread with the atmosphere anad getting back into it afterwards. Also it worked better for showing artefacts. I think I am speaking for others when I say that the most powerful emotions are felt by seeing 2 - 5,000 year old artefacts and holding them, rather than being behind glass in a museum. I hope we shall have a new gazebo before long so that picnics and viewing can be assured for when the weather may be a bit iffy. My thanks to Nikki and friends for such a mutually productive day.

30/05/2023

The May newsletter of the Leverhulme Trust has an article on page 5 https://www.leverhulme.ac.uk/newsletter by Ian Armit covering the research project for the Littledean heads. Cults of the head? The Dean Hall Roman temple carvings in context. The article provides background and explains the importance of the heads nationally and describes some of the work the project will carry out. A researcher has been appointed and the project will be underway in September. This is a huge and exciting step forward in the recognition of the Littledean site and its importance in the national context. We have Professor Ian Armit to thank for this, as without his academic backing the site would no doubt have continued as a backwater struggling for recognition or have slipped once more into obscurity. We now have the opportunity to work towards the Littledean temple site and its remarkable finds becoming more accessible once again, for both the general public, researchers and schools.

We compile our newsletter three times a year to give an insight into the most recently funded research projects and list the recipients of grants awarded. If you would like to receive a print copy, please email [email protected]