THETFORD

NORFOLK, ENGLAND

This was the site of a settlement and major religious center of the Iceni. Some think it may have been the site of the residence of Boudicca, the Iceni queen. (The tribal capital or oppidum of the Iceni was at Caistor St. Edmund, a site renamed Venta Icenorum by the Romans.)

A substantial late Celtic complex was built at Thetford. The site consisted of three large, round structures 100 feet (30m) in diameter, the center of which was approached by a ceremonial avenue. This layout has a marked similarity to that of much earlier Neolithic ceremonial monuments in timber or stone. One of the round stmctures was two stories high and seems to have been large roundhouse.

There was an elaborate array of timber enclosures around the sacred enclosure, including seven rows of close-set palisades laid out in straight lines. What these were for it is not certain, but it is possible that they were designed to stop people outside from seeing in. All of the site’s timbers were stripped out by the Romans following the revolt of Boudicca against Rome in AD 60.

This elaborately laid-out precinct may be a Celtic temple. Alternatively, it may have been the palace of Boudicca. The archeologists are uncertain.

A Roman temple dedicated to Faunus the woodland god was built close by. Faunus had no particular British equivalent, but perhaps the Iceni worshiped a woodland spirit before the Roman invasion. Maybe the arrays of posts represented a sacred grove, which might be a relatively small number of trees; the sacred grove at classical Nemea, for example, had only about a dozen trees. The Thetford sacred grove consisted of nine rows of oak posts, and it is believed that their branches may have been left on.