My PhD research looks at women in Roman Britain through burials and tombstones. In the first year of my PhD, I visited all the museums that stored women’s tombstones and carried out epigraphic analysis to help me better understand the lives of women in Roman Britain. This was a great experience as I had to contact different curators and travel all over the country to visit these tombstones in person. It really helped to discuss in person the tombstones with curators and museum assistants, as I realised how interested they were in their collection.
I had previously attended training with Oxford University on how to carry out epigraphic analysis, and this really helped me when it came to looking at the tombstones in person. So, torch and measuring tape in hand, I travelled from Bath to Chester as I looked at women’s tombstones.
As part of the analysis of tombstones, I was trained at the GIS (Geographic Information System) suite in Virtual Reflectance Transformation Imaging (V-RTI). This digital method improves on previous techniques by revealing details invisible to the naked eye. By manipulating multiple light sources, it is possible to highlight areas of the object that are not possible to see when standing in a museum.
The technique was invented at Liverpool and was used in a project in Türkiye on training and community education for heritage conservation by Liverpool’s Dr Alan Greaves, which highlighted its importance for outdoor stones vulnerable to damage. Through my research visits at Ilkley Manor House, I created a digital model of the Vedica tombstone and used V-RTI to identify invisible details. Throughout my visits to Ilkley, I created a close relationship with the museum and was asked to give a public talk on the tombstone. They have since asked that I do V-RTI for other objects in their collection, such as the medieval stone.
Who is Vedica, and how can the tombstone benefit from V-RTI?
The tombstone for Vedica was originally discovered in 1884 due to the expansion of the Rose and Crown Inn in Ilkley and was reused as the foundation of an old rubble wall. The original report that recorded the find, having been published 141 years ago, gave more details of the tombstone than is recorded today. The report described the relief that showed strings in Vedica’s hair and a circular object placed on her lap. By looking at the relief today, it is difficult to see what this circular object is, which was also the case at the time of discovery.
Having given plenty of talks on Vedica, it is an interesting question to ask where people guess what this object is, and it really surprises people when they do find out what it is! To identify the object, I used V-RTI, as well as to confirm what was said in 1884, that Vedica wore a head scarf. Today, it is said that Vedica is wearing plaits, and there is no reference to a head scarf at all. So, when I took images of the tombstones, I made sure to take more than needed where her hair and the circular object were.
RIB639. Tombstone for Vedica (Source: Bell 2024; Ilkley Manor House):
The process of V-RTI and the support at Liverpool
Before I set about visiting Ilkley, I got training from technician JR Peterson, who showed me how to take photographs so the digital model was of high quality. It really is not as simple as taking images; every section of the object needs an image at different angles and perspectives. Thanks, JR. I also borrowed camera equipment from the department and travelled to Ilkley with a fellow PhD student, Susan Kennedy.
When we arrived, it was teamwork as Susan checked that I was not taking images too close, so we put a mark on the floor so that each image was from the same distance. We both checked each image after we took it to make sure it was good quality. As we were doing this, visitors would come up to talk about what we were doing, and it was exciting to speak to the public about what it could do for the museum’s collection. We took multiple images of the tombstone at different angles so that all perspectives of the stone were captured. It was also great to show Susan how the process was, as a new PhD student, it is a great skill set to have. By the end of the day, we had taken roughly 300 images of the stone, and it was time to have a brew!
When we got back to Liverpool, there was a four-stage process to put the images through Agisoft, Blender, Relite and RTI Viewer. These pieces of software enable you to create a digital model and then manipulate it using various rendering modes that enhance texture and shadow effects. When Susan and I had processed the model, we then clicked on different modes and changed the light source to see if there was anything we could see on her lap. At first, we could see nothing, and this was a bit disappointing, but as a last resort, I went through it again very slowly and had a eureka! Moment. I had found something, and not what I was expecting at all!
The results of the V-RTI and what it can tell us about women in Roman Britain
As I selected different rendering modes and manipulated the light source, the object on Vedica’s lap was clearly a baby hare. This was a significant finding, but was I really seeing this, or was it my eyes just seeing things that weren’t there? V-RTI does not always show anything, so the fact that I could see a baby hare was big.
I spoke to my supervisor, Dr Alan Greaves, and he came to view the model, and yes, he agreed, there was a hare. A big moment for me was when he shook my hand and congratulated me; a big finding like this is what V-RTI can do. After 141 years, Vedica’s baby hare was finally revealed, and having done so, I now needed to understand its importance.
In Iron Age and Roman Britain, hares differed greatly, where Iron Age Britain considered hares as sacred, and Roman Britain viewed them as a food source. We can see the sacred nature of hares through Boudica’s pre-battle divination release, which symbolised warfare and power over life and death. Caesar even commented on the ‘Britons (who) consider(ed) it contrary to divine law to eat the hare… they raise these …for their own amusement and pleasure.’ (Gallic Wars, 5.12). So, the baby hare on Vedica’s lap was most likely a pet, as we see her hand resting on it, and this can help us think about women in Roman Britain who still held onto pre-Roman culture.
V-RTI of Vedica’s tombstone showing the baby hare (Source: produced by Bell 2024):
What now?
V-RTI can reveal details that time has rubbed away, and having got positive results from Vedica’s tombstone, I hope to research women in Roman Britain using it in the future. There are over 100 women’s tombstones in Roman Britain, and I hope to do V-RTI on them all. V-RTI isn’t a technique that everyone knows to use, so I plan to create an instruction handbook on how to do it, which will be available to staff and students. I have discussed this technique with undergraduate students, and most of them have shown interest in learning how to do V-RTI. In the future, alongside other PhD students and my supervisor, we plan to put on a training day so we can teach this valuable technique to others.