Year 7 have been learning about immigration into Britain at the time of the Romans. They were allowed to handle (after hand sanitising!) some Roman objects that were found on the Mount School site during excavations in 1930.
They particularly liked the fragment of a “head pot” modelled after Julia Domna, the Syrian wife of the Emperor Septimius Severus, who himself came from North Africa. The imperial family moved to York in 208AD and their presence was marked in York by an increase in North African cooking equipment and pots depicting the Empress and her fashionable hairstyle.
Year 7 have been learning about how people living in Northern England at the time of the Romans came from as far away as modern Morocco, Poland, Belgium, Spain and Syria. They have also learnt that relationships between people in Roman Britain could be surprising, eg between master and (ex)slave or between same sex partners.
The girls were delighted to be able to touch historical objects in this way and to be in direct contact with the past.
