Maiden Castle from the air
English Heritage
ANCIENT DORSET
The Archaeology Gallery
Dorset's rich archaeology is reflected in the collections of Dorset County Museum with over a million finds from the Iron and Bronze Ages to the later medieval period. The most important of these objects are on display in the Archaeology Gallery, where visitors will find gold neck-rings, hoards of bronze coins and beautiful Roman mosaics.
The Gallery also displays objects from one of the country's most important archaeological sites, Maiden Castle, near Dorchester. People lived and worshipped on Maiden Castle, one of the largest hillforts in Europe, for thousands of years but the Iron Age is the period from which most finds date, including domestic utensils, working tools, pottery and skeletons.
The finds reveal a great deal about the local landscape, which was not always as peaceful as it is now. Buried on Maiden Castle there is evidence of the bloody battles that took place after the Romans landed in Britain in AD 43.
Under Roman rule, Dorchester and the surrounding area saw a great deal of change. The Romans built an amphitheatre, aqueducts and baths, town walls and elegant houses. Visitors to Dorchester can still see the remains of a Roman Town House, and there is an enormous wealth of Roman material, including beads, glassware, pottery and mosaics, displayed in Dorset County Museum.
GALLERY HIGHLIGHT
Roman Ballista Bolt
When mass graves were excavated at Maiden Castle near Dorchester during the 1930s, this famous skeleton with a Roman ballista bolt lodged in his spine was found.
A member of the Durotriges tribe of Iron Age Britons, the farmers and villagers who lived at Maiden Castle farmed the land outside the ramparts and felt safe from attack in their massive raised settlement with its huge defensive gateways.
After the Roman invasion of AD43, commander Vespasian, with his II Augusta legion, fought his way through Dorset and began to establish Roman control over the area. In the battle for Maiden Castle, the Durotriges, armed with only slings and stones, were massacred by the far superior forces of the Roman Army.