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| Question:
What new features did the Romans introduce in Sussex houses? |
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| West Blatchington |
| The roundhouses of the Iron Age often gave way in the Roman period to rectangular houses such as the small villa at West Blatchington pictured here. These houses were divided up into separate rooms, which were used for different purposes. |
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| Hypocaust |
| This shows a Roman underground heating system called a hypocaust, built at Fishbourne Roman Palace in the 3rd century AD. The floor was held up by the stacked tiles (pilae), and hot air from a furnace would have passed along the channels and up through vents in the walls. The room could have been kept comfortably warm by this method. |
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| Mosaic Floor |
| This is a large mosaic floor, with the central panel showing the Roman god Cupid riding a dolphin. Mosaics were made up of tiny pieces of cut stone (tesserae). These were stuck to the floor with mortar, a type of cement. Each mosaic used thousands of pieces to make a pattern. They were found in many Roman buildings. |
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| Stone Walls |
| Roman buildings, such as the villa pictured here at Watergate Hanger, were often made of stones that had been cemented together. In this way, large buildings could be constructed, and their remains are usually easy for archaeologists to find. |
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| Columns |
| This is the top of a column, found at Fishbourne Roman Palace. Columns were often used in Roman architecture. |
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| Tiled Roof |
| Roman roofs were usually made of red clay tiles. There were two types of tile, a flat one (tegula) and a curved one (imbrex). Here you can see how they fitted together to make a roof that did not leak. |
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| Bathsuite |
| Bathsuites were important parts of Roman villas, either standing separately or attached to the main house like the example at Chilgrove pictured here. |
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