Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-alike license 2. The battle to take the castle was a bloody one: the Romans under Vespasian finally victorious. Recent excavations have uncovered the bodies of 38 Iron Age warriors, buried with food and drink for their journey into the after life. A Roman temple was built at Maiden Castle in the 4th century, the foundations of which can still be seen today.
The fort was abandoned shortly after this time, although it may have been occupied during early Saxon times. It has certainly been deserted for the last years or so. Maiden Castle is maintained by English Heritage and is open all year. When mass graves were excavated at Maiden Castle near Dorchester during the s, a skeleton with a Roman ballista bolt lodged in its spine was unearthed. The skeleton is now housed in Dorset County Museum, which displays many of the objects found at Maiden Castle.
The eastern part of the hill fort remained in use for the first few decades of the Roman occupation. Many first-century Roman artefacts have been found near the east entrance and in the centre of the hill fort. In the fourth century the Romans erected a temple on the site, the remains of which are still visible in the northeast sector of the fort.
Maiden Castle is located off the A, 2 miles south of Dorchester, it is now in the care of English Heritage and is open all year round with free entrance to the public. His report made dramatic reading, describing how the Roman forces set fire to the settlement, stormed the gates and 'savagely cut down' men and women, young and old. Subsequent excavations in have been able to provide new information and have led to a re-interpretation of some of his work.
There is a suggestion, for instance, that the burnt layers of charcoal which Wheeler took as evidence of the torching of the site may in fact be the result of iron working.
Sir Mortimer Wheeler was born in Glasgow. In it was his delight to become professor of archaeology of the Roman Provinces at the Institute of Archaeology in London. He was knighted in He carried out excavations at Colchester in , at Maiden Castle from to and at St Albans.
He was well known for his "trench system" style of excavation. Perhaps because of his military background, he was a great organiser and carried out probably the biggest and best-run excavations of the period. He was also a great populariser of archaeology, actually encouraging people to visit sites and even offering souvenirs for sale. His excavation at Maiden Castle was the culmination of his career in Britain. Maiden Casle is found on the outskirts of Dorchester, by signposted road off A Site can be accessed at any time.
We invite you to discuss this subject, but remember this is a public forum. The original fort was much smaller than that seen today with just a single ditch enclosing just one of the hilltops. In all respects the fort was not much different from the myriad of similar hill forts littered across the country. Around the fourth century BC the castle underwent massive expansion; the perimeter of the fort extended to include the adjacent hilltop and the defensive earthworks were upgraded with the three ditch system seen today.
Whether this was due to defensive requirements or was just for symbolic purposes, i. They assaulted and seized multiple hill forts and, from archaeological evidence including a Ballista bolt lodged in a human skeleton , Maiden Castle was one of the targets.
Inhabited at the time by the Durotriges tribe, the seemingly impressive defences were only a fleeting obstacle to the Roman military machine.
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