EPQ presentation

Okay starting with what my project is. To start we have to think about a few things.

1.Who is it aimed at – well the answer to that is everyone there is no age limit on history and the romans are one of histories most loved people by everyone.

2.Why is it important? We always need to think about our past to make sense of our future. It is important to know what came before you so we can respect what they have left for us.

3.What did I decide to do. I wanted a visual project that could suit all ages. A model makes it seem more real and the guide book gives all the information in an easy way.

4.Planning was difficult as I needed to think about all the different sections of my project such as the model itself, the guidebook and the essay.

Roman dining is among one of the most well known aspects of roman life. Here we can see a typical example of a roman tricilnium. The tricilnium was the most important room in a roman house as it was where they would entertain guests therefore it would have shown the wealth and status of the owner.

Lullingstone has a beautiful mosaic which depicts the story of Bellephron and the Chimera. This mosaic has no known parallel in the entire country and shows that it is unique and the owner was wealthy. Also this mosaic tells us something about the religion of the owner as the story has Christian relations and is seems to be an allegory of good and evil (a fundamental Christian belief) whilst still showing of the cultural knowledge of the owner of their classical past.

Moreover something you all probably don’t know is that the romans had a particular etiqaute when dining. There were 3 benches which were divided up in classes and in the roman times class was very important.

On the low couch you would have the host family .

On the middle couch which would face the view you would have all the high class guests like the patricians or equestrians

On the high couch you would have the lower status guests such as the Plebeians or free men. (free men could be very wealthy and distinguished however they were still low class as they were born slaves.

here is a key change that occurs during the roman religion in terms of religion.

Since they were founded the romans worshiped many deities which represented different parts of life, some of the most well known are pictured here such as Jupiter, Juno, Cupid, Neptune, Pluto, Ceres and Diana.

However Lullingstone has a Christian house church which has the earliest examples of Christian worship in Britain.  The top image is of a Chi-Rho which means Jesus Christ in Greek X – P. one of the earliest Christian symbols.

Leisure, Lullingstone tells us a lot about what the romans liked to do in their spare time.

We know they used to keep pets like Lurchers as seen here. There was a skeleton of a Lurcher found on the site.

We also know they used to eat foods like these seen here.

They also used to enjoy evens like chariot racing and gladiators – these were huge spectacles which everyone would have attended in Amphitheatres or circus’. They were often funded by the government. The picture here is of Caerleon in Wales which is the UK’s best surviving amphitheatre.

HOWEVER the baths are the most well known part of roman living – I’m sure you have all heard of the roman baths in bath. This clearly shows how important  they were to roman life and how large they were.

•I have achieved skills in planning and organisation, I felt I had a good base behind the project with lots of information and research. I didn’t just dive into the project unknown. Also I have now achieved design techniques I have never done before, I have never done anything like this and it was hard to learn all the different skills needed to make the project look good.•I however found my time management very problematic and is something I need to work on, because it was such a big project which required so much research, time and accuracy. I failed at points to make a balance between the project and other commitments which left me pushed for time. However in the future I think I would try to mange my time a lot better and think more about deadlines and goals. •I have built upon my research skills the most out of all of them. Because lullingstone is such a small part of the roman archaeology in Britain it was challenging to find research based specifically on the villa, so I had to look hard for sources relating to this only. But it was very fun because as part of my research I got to actually visit the site with my dad for primary information which I really enjoyed.

There are 3 things I would do differently next time

1.Time management I would think more about my deadlines and balance my time 2.Maybe I would use different materials to make my project have a better finish (e.g using a laser cutter instead of a craft knife to cut the foam board) 3.MORE RESEARCH – you can never do enough of it – maybe I could go to other villa and make comparisons or visit big university libraries.

So this project begs the question, what next?

At university I will be studying classical archaeology and fortunately there are over 150 roman archaeological sites in the UK alone this map here shows a few places.

Moreover what else is there to study, there are so many aspects of roman life that we can study in depth from their remains, for example military forts amphitheatres, bathhouses and forums.

There is so much to learn about how I can I stop just here.

The whole project was a very positive experience for me and there were four aspects that I enjoyed the most.

•Research – I loved learning about the Romans as I enjoy learning new things. •The Visit – I loved going to the villa and learning about it first hand and visually. •I loved unleashing my creative side and creating something completely from scratch and seeing the outcome afterwards.