Maumbury Rings is a Roman amphitheatre created by adapting a Late Neolithic henge monument on the southern outskirts of Durnovaria (modern Dorchester), the civitas capital of the Durotriges. The Roman conversion, probably undertaken in the early-to-mid 1st century AD shortly after the establishment of the town, involved cutting down the interior of the henge to deepen the arena and reshaping the banks into seating, producing an oval arena roughly 60 by 50 metres capable of holding several thousand spectators.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
As the public spectacle venue of one of the principal towns of south-western Britain, Maumbury served the civic and entertainment needs of the Durotrigan population and is one of the best-preserved civilian amphitheatres in Roman Britain, comparable in form (though not in construction technique) to those at Cirencester and Silchester. Its reuse of a prehistoric monument is unusual and reflects pragmatic adaptation of an existing earthwork on the town's approach road.
Excavations by H. St George Gray between 1908 and 1913 revealed the Roman remodelling, including timber revetments, the deepened arena floor, and entrance arrangements at the north-east and south-west, along with Neolithic shafts containing antler picks and chalk objects beneath. Finds attributable to the Roman phase are relatively modest, but the site was later reused as a Civil War artillery fort in the
Maumbury Rings is a Roman amphitheatre created by adapting a Late Neolithic henge monument on the southern outskirts of Durnovaria (modern Dorchester), the civitas capital of the Durotriges. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a amphitheatre site from the Roman period in Britain.
Roman amphitheater at Durno(no)varia is classified as a Roman amphitheatre — a civilian site in the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer. Roman Britain's archaeology encompasses thousands of sites ranging from legionary fortresses and marching camps to villas, temples and towns.
Several Roman sites lie within a short distance, including Durno(no)varia (0.3 km), Outer defences of Roman town, W of St Genevieve's Convent (0.6 km), Dorchester Roman walls (0.8 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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