Okay, so when you picture an archaeologist in
your head, what is the very first image that
pops into your mind? Probably the classic Hollywood
version, I guess. Right, exactly. The fedora,
the whip. The leather jacket. Yeah. Dodging giant
boulders in a jungle somewhere. Snatching a golden
idol off a pedestal right before the whole temple
collapses. That is definitely the grab and go
school of history. It is. But the reality of
uncovering history for the listener who really
follows this stuff, you know, it's usually a
lot less dodging boulders and a lot more. Reading
dusty ledgers. Considerably more dirt and considerably
less glory most of the time. Exactly. And today
we're doing a deep dive into a figure who is
pretty much the exact opposite of that action
hero trope in the best possible way. A completely
different kind of pioneer. Right. We're talking
about a man who proves that the real drama of
history isn't always found in some hidden treasure
room. No, it's usually found in the trash heap.
The trash, the backlog of paperwork. And honestly,
it's found in the basement of a museum under
a layer of dust that has just been sitting there
for 50 years. That is a perfect setup because
the person we're looking at today spent a lot
of time in those basements. We are doing a deep
dive into the life and work of George Council
Boone. And if you haven't heard the name before.
Don't worry about it. Because by the end of this,
you're going to realize that much of what we
know about Roman Britain comes directly from
his work. How the system actually worked, how
the average people lived, how they paid for their
bread, how they built their houses. All of that
comes from the sort of patient, almost microscopic
work that Boone dedicated his entire life to.
He really was a foundational figure. We are calling
this deep dive the guardian of history because.
That's really what he was right. He wasn't just
finding things in the dirt. He was saving them.
Saving them and making sense of them, which is
the harder part. George C. Boone, born in 1927
and died in 1994. And if you look at his resume,
it is essentially a triple threat. Yes, British
archaeologist, numismatist and museum curator.
And we are definitely going to spend a lot of
time on that word numismatist later. We have
to. It's a huge part of his legacy. But those
three roles, the archaeologist, the coin expert,
the curator. They weren't separate jobs for him.
No, they were all completely integrated into
the same overarching mission. He spent his career
primarily focused on two major geographical beats.
First, the Roman town of Silchester. Right. And
later, the Roman sites in Wales, specifically
the fortress at Caerleon. So it's a career that
really spans the second half of the 20th century.
A period of massive change in how archaeology
was even done. Exactly. What I love about the
source material for this deep dive is that we
aren't just looking at a standard biography.
We're looking at the actual output. Right. We
have his biographical records obituaries written
by colleagues like William Manning and Marion
Archibald. But crucially, we have his extensive
bibliography. The list of the books and papers
he actually wrote. And let me tell you, looking
at this list, this guy was completely obsessed
with the tiny details. Because that is the absolute
key to understanding Boone. How so? He looked
at the macroscopic things, the massive Roman
towns and fortresses, but he understood them
entirely through the microscopic things. The
small stuff. Yes, the coins, the tokens, the
tiles. So our mission for you today, the listener,
is to track this career arc to see how a student...
Digging in a local park becomes this massive
national authority managing huge collections.
And to understand why someone would dedicate
years to writing an entire book about brick stamps.
Which sounds completely dry on the surface. It
does, but I promise you by the time we finish
today, you will understand why brick stamps are
actually thrilling. I am definitely holding you
to that promise. Fair enough. Okay, let's start
at the very beginning, Chapter 1, Foundations
in Bristol. Right. So George Boone was born on
September 20th, 1927 in Bristol. And his academic
roots are very firmly planted right there in
that city. He attended Bristol University. And
this is where we see the first really major influence
on his career trajectory, because he didn't just
go in and study bigging methodology. No, he studied
Latin. And not just with anyone he studied under,
Arnaldo Momigliano. Which is a crucial detail
for anyone who knows the history of classics.
Momigliano was an absolute titan of classical
history, wasn't he? A giant in the field, yes.
So by studying Latin under him, Boone wasn't
just learning how to conjugate verbs. Exactly.
He was learning how to rigorously analyze ancient
texts. Which in the mid -20th century was a big
deal because archaeology was in this transition
period. It was moving from being essentially
a glorified treasure hunt for aristocrats into
a proper rigorous science. But Boone started
with that very classical text -based foundation.
Which gives you a completely different perspective
when you finally do get out into the field. Because
before he ever picked up a trowel. He already
knew how to read the primary sources. He knew
what the Romans were actually saying about themselves
in their own words. Right, so when you find a
coin or piece of an inscription in the dirt,
you aren't just looking at a pretty object. You
are reading a message from the past. But he didn't
just stay in the library reading those messages.
No, the source material specifically mentions
that while he was still a university student,
he conducted his first actual excavation. This
really stood out to me when I was reading through
the notes. That he started so early? Yeah, he
didn't wait for permission or for a degree to
be handed to him. He just went out to Kings Weston
Park in Bristol to dig up a Roman villa. It shows
an incredible amount of initiative for a young
student. Kings Weston Park is a pretty significant
site too, isn't it? It is. And for a student
to be organizing and leading an excavation there,
it suggests he already had that intense drive.
He needed to get his hands dirty. He needed to
see the physical, tangible reality of what he
was reading about in Momigliano's classes. And
that combination of the strict book smarts and
the actual field dirt seems to set the stage
for literally everything that comes next. It
perfectly primes him for the reality of professional
archaeology. Because as soon as he graduates,
he lands his first real job. Right. Which brings
us to 1950. He graduates and immediately takes
a post as the archaeological assistant at Ready
Museum. And this begins what we are calling the
Silchester years. The Silchester years, which
ran from 1950 to 1957. Now, for the listener
who might not be familiar with the geography,
Silchester, or Caliva Atrobatum, to use the proper
Roman name, is an incredibly fascinating site.
It really is, because it's one of the few major
Roman towns in Britain that wasn't eventually
built over by a modern city. Right. Usually if
you want to find Roman London, you have to dig
deep under a modern parking lot or an office
building. But Silchester is just sitting out
there in the Hampshire countryside. Exactly.
The modern town moved away over the centuries,
leaving the Roman footprint largely open. But
here is the interesting twist about Boone's job
at the Reading Museum. He wasn't out there digging
fresh holes in the countryside every day. Right.
His actual job was to deal with the backlog.
The dreaded backlog. Okay, let's break that down
for the listener because it sounds bureaucratic,
but it's actually vital. What does dealing with
a backlog mean in this context? The source material
notes that he was tasked with cataloging the
massive collection of artifacts from excavations
that were carried out by the Society of Antiquaries.
And these weren't recent excavations, were they?
No, they were done before the First World War.
Oh, wow. So he is dealing with stuff that had
been dug up 30 or maybe 40 years prior. Or more.
Yes. And this is a massive, often overlooked
part of being a museum curator. It's what you
could call the archaeology of archaeology. That
is a brilliant way to phrase it. Yes. You have
these dusty wooden crates full of material dug
up by a Dohertyian gentleman decades ago. And
maybe their field notes aren't exactly up to
modern standards. Maybe the organization is a
complete mess or labels have fallen off. Exactly.
And Boone had to go into that basement. open
those crates, organize it all, and make actual
scientific sense of it using the standards of
the 1950s. That sounds like an absolutely monumental
intellectual task. It is, because it's not just
discovery, it's rediscovery. You are basically
trying to reconstruct someone else's thought
process from 40 years ago based on a pile of
sordid rocks and pottery. It requires immense
patience and a very deep encyclopedic knowledge
of the material culture. And he didn't just organize
it and put it back on the shelf. He actually
published it. He turned that chaotic Edwardian
collection into the definitive published record
of the site. In 1957, he published Roman Silchester.
Which was a major milestone, but he didn't stop
there. Looking at the bibliography, he kept going.
He published a new guide called The Roman Town
Caleva Atrobatum at Silchester, Hampshire in
1963. And then even later, in 1974, he published
Silchester, the Roman Town of Caleva. That 1974
book really stands out to me. Why is that? Because
it shows he kept returning to the subject. He
didn't just write the 1957 book, wash his hands
of it, and walk away. No, he constantly updated
his understanding of the site. As new archaeological
theories emerged... Or perhaps as he just had
more time to analyze that old data, he refined
the story. It's like he became the official ghostwriter
for those original Adordian excavators. He gave
a modern, rigorous voice to their raw findings
decades after they were gone. And that right
there is the mark of a true guardian of history.
It's not about getting your own glory by finding
a new shiny object. It's about maintaining the
integrity of the historical record. Making sure
the work done before World War I wasn't just
wasted or forgotten in a damp basement. So he
really makes his name at Silchester, putting
that town on the modern archaeological map. But
then in 1957, the exact same year... His first
major book comes out. He makes a huge career
move. He crosses the border. He does. He moves
to the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff. And
this kicks off chapter three of our deep dive,
the move to Wales and the fortress of Caerleon.
This was a really significant shift for him professionally.
He started there as the assistant keeper of archaeology.
And just to quickly track his overall career
trajectory there for a second, he basically stayed
there until his retirement. He rose through the
ranks, becoming keeper in 1976. and eventually
full curator in 1987. He was a true institutional
lifer. He became an institution within the institution,
honestly. But geographically and academically,
he traded a civilian Roman town, Silchester,
for a hardcore Roman military fortress. Caroleon
or Isca Augusta? Yes. Caroleon was one of the
three permanent legionary fortresses in Roman
Britain. It was a massive military base. So the
material culture, the actual stuff you are finding
in the ground, is fundamentally different from
a civilian town. You're looking at military equipment,
weapons armor, specialized barracks, large -scale
bathhouses. for thousands of soldiers. The source
mentions that almost as soon as he arrived in
Cardiff, he began what are called rescue excavations
at Carillon. Now, rescue excavation, the phrase
sounds very intense. What does that actually
imply on the ground? It is incredibly intense,
especially in the post -war period. Because of
all the rebuilding. Exactly. In the 60s and 70s,
there was massive urban development happening
across the UK, building new roads, housing estates,
commercial centers. And often those new developments
are dropping right on top of ancient sites. So
archaeologists are literally forced to race against
the bulldozers. You don't have the luxury of
spending three pristine summers gently brushing
away dirt with a toothbrush. Not at all. You
have a very limited, highly pressured window
to dig, record, and save everything you can.
Before the site is permanently destroyed by concrete.
It requires incredible speed and decisiveness.
And a very deep, immediate knowledge of what
you are looking at so you can prioritize what
to save. You have to know instantly what is important
and what isn't. And Boone was right on the absolute
front lines of this movement at Kirlian. And
what is wild is that despite that immense physical
pressure of rescue archaeology, he was still
pumping out high -level publications. He was
incredibly prolific during this time. In 1972,
He published Isca, the Roman legionary fortress
at Karelian. And then in 1987, he followed up
with The Legionary Fortress of Karelian Isca,
a brief account. And there was one specifically
about the baths too, right? Yes. The Legionary
Fortress Baths at Karelian co -authored with
J. David Zienkiewicz in 1986. Focusing heavily
on the buildings themselves. The baths were a
massive central part of Roman military and social
life. But what's fascinating to me looking at
his bibliography is how incredibly specific he
gets. He wasn't just writing these broad sweeping
overviews of Roman Britain. No, he was drilling
down into the absolute minutia of the sites.
Which is the perfect segue to chapter four of
our outline, The Specialist or The Master of
the Small Things. Because this is where I think
Boone's genius really shines through for the
listener. He didn't just look at the grand walls
and the statues. He looked at the everyday trash.
One man's ancient trash is George Boone's career
defining treasure. It really is. He looked closely
at the everyday objects used by regular people.
The sources list numerous papers on ceramics,
metalwork, and glass. But the one publication
that immediately caught my eye, and the one I
joked about earlier, is the book he published
in 1984. Laterarium Iscanum. Yes, Laterarium
Iscanum, the antifixes, brick and tile stamps
of the Second Augustan Legion. It is a mouthful
of a title. Okay, lay it on me. Why in the world
would someone write a whole book dedicated just
to brick and tile stamps? I know it sounds incredibly
niche, almost painfully dry, doesn't it? It sounds
like the kind of book you use to prop up a wobbly
desk. But think about what a physical stamp on
a clay tile actually represents historically.
Okay. The Roman army wasn't just a group of guys
with swords. It was a massive, highly organized
industrial machine. Right, they had to build
their own infrastructure. Exactly when the Second
Augustan Legion was deployed to build a fortress,
they didn't just go down to the local hardware
store to buy bricks. They manufactured them themselves
on site. They made them, and crucially, they
stamped them before the clay dried. Like a corporate
branding exercise. Precisely, they stamped them
with Leg II AVG, meaning Ligio Secunda Vesta.
So if you as an archaeologist map out exactly
where you find tiles... with that specific stamp,
you are doing something amazing. You are literally
mapping the geographic movement and the physical
influence of that exact military unit. You can
see which specific buildings they built, which
older buildings they repaired, and exactly where
they were stationed over time. So the humble
clay tile is basically a 2 ,000 -year -old GPS
tracking device. It is administrative and logistical
history written permanently in fired clay. Boone
understood that if you want to know how the Roman
Empire actually functioned on a daily logistical
level... You don't look at the marble statues.
You look at the bricks. You look at the supply
chains. That is actually incredibly cool. When
you frame it like that, it completely transforms
a boring building material into a dynamic story
of imperial logistics and power. And that right
there is the boon touch. He takes the most mundane
object imaginable and extracts a massive historical
narrative from it. But if we are talking about
small things that tell big stories. We absolutely
have to move to chapter five. Ah, yes. Chapter
five. The numismatist. The coin guy. The coin
guy. But looking at this extensive bibliography,
he wasn't just checking the couch cushions for
Roman spare change. The breadth of his expertise
here is staggering. It is incredibly wide, historically
speaking. Obviously working at massive Roman
sites like Silchester and Carolin. He was a leading
expert on Roman coins. That was his bread and
butter. That is the baseline expectation for
someone in his position, yeah. But his published
work shows he went way, way beyond the Romans.
He jumped centuries forward into completely different
eras. Yeah, I am seeing titles here that are
wild. Let's look at this one. Coins of the Anarchy,
1135 to 1154, published in 1988. Oh, this is
a fantastic and chaotic period of history. The
Anarchy. Yes, the anarchy was a brutal civil
war in England between King Stephen and the Empress
Matilda, or Maude, as she's often called. It
was a time when, as the famous Anglo -Saxon chronicles
said, Christ and his saints slept. Complete breakdown
of law and order across the country. So how exactly
does a breakdown of law and order show up in
the coinage? Well, usually in a functioning state,
the king strictly controls the mints. Right.
The currency is standardized and stable. But
in a civil war. In a civil war, that central
authority collapses. So you suddenly have rogue
barons minting their own private coins to pay
their own private armies. You have crude emergency
coinage being bashed out in local villages. Exactly.
And Boone, studying this specific era, shows
he was deeply interested in political chaos and
how that chaos physically manifests in the economy.
That is fascinating. He also has a book called
Welsh Hordes, 1979 to 1981, which covers the
coinage of Cunnet in Wales and the coinage of
the Empress Maud. So now we have brought Vikings
into the mix. King Nut, the Viking king of England.
Yes. And finding Cunnet's coinage buried in hordes
in Wales tells you so much about the interactions
of the time. It tells you about trade routes
or maybe tribute payments or violent raiding.
Boone is actively connecting the local history
of Wales to the much broader Scandinavian and
European world just through these tiny pieces
of silver. It's amazing how a single buried coin
can act as a historical breadcrumb trail linking
entire cultures. But the thing that really surprised
me in the sources is that he didn't even stop
at the medieval stuff. No, he kept going right
into the modern industrial era. He published
Welsh tokens of the 17th century and Welsh industrial
tokens and metals, which shed light on... 18th
and 19th century industrial development. OK,
we need to clarify this for the listener. What
exactly is a token in this historical context?
Is it like an arcade token? Conceptually, it
is actually not that far off. Really? Yes. In
the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries, there
was frequently a massive shortage of official
royal coinage. Like small change pennies and
half pennies? Exactly. The government just wasn't
minting enough low -value coins for everyday
people to use. So how did people buy things?
Well, local merchants and massive industrial
mining companies would literally mint their own
tokens. They made their own money. They made
their own private money to pay their workers
or to allow local people to buy a loaf of bread
at the company store. So by studying these tokens,
Boone is actually studying the grassroots economics
of the Industrial Revolution. He is looking at
exactly how copper mining companies in rural
Wales manage their payroll. He is looking at
the hyper local economy of a village shopkeeper.
in the 1600s. It drives home the point that Boone
wasn't just interested in the Romans as a static
subject. He was fundamentally interested in human
economic systems. Whether it's a Roman legionary
getting paid in silver denarii or a Walsh coal
miner getting paid in stamped copper tokens,
Boone was fascinated by how human value was exchanged.
The Mechanics of Daily Survival Across Two Millennia.
And speaking of daily mechanics, he wrote one
book that seems to step away from pure academia
and is just purely practical. Ah, yes. 101 Coins,
published in 1973. The subtitle is Some of the
Varieties Commonly Brought for Identification.
That title right there is the absolute mark of
a museum curator who has spent way too much time
standing at the public front desk. I can vividly
imagine it just people constantly coming in off
the street with a rusty shoebox they found in
their granddad's attic asking, is this worth
anything? Exactly. They plonk it on the desk
and say, I dug this up in the garden. Is it Roman
gold? And 99 % of the time, it's a modern button
or a tractor washer. But instead of getting annoyed,
Boone wrote a practical, accessible guide to
help people actually identify the real stuff.
It really shows that he deeply valued public
education. He wasn't just interested in writing
dense academic papers for a dozen other professors
sitting in ivory towers. He wanted the general
public to understand and appreciate what they
had found in their own backyards. It makes him
sound incredibly approachable and grounded as
a scholar. And speaking of his standing as a
scholar, we need to move to Chapter 6, Professional
Honor. No, you don't. And his list of honors
in the source material is extensive. He was what
we might call a joiner, but in the very best
sense of that word. He actively served and led
the core organizations that keep British archaeology
functioning. Let's run through the list. We have
the Society of Antiquaries, where he was vice
president from 1980 to 1984. Which is a massive
deal. The Society of Antiquaries is the premier
body for history and archaeology in the UK. Being
the VP there means you are actively steering
the ship for the whole discipline. He was also
vice president of the Roman Society from 1977
right up until his death in 1994. That is 17
continuous years of leadership. It shows immense
dedication and stability. He was clearly a relied
upon pillar of the Roman studies community. And
of course, we can't forget the coin societies,
given his expertise. He was a fellow of the Royal
Numismatic Society and a council member of the
British Numismatic Society from 1983 to 1986.
He really had a foot in every single camp. He
was the vital connector between the general field
archaeologists digging the trenches and the highly
specialized coin experts in the labs. And that
kind of cross -disciplinary respect. is quite
rare. Often specialists just stay strictly in
their own lane. Boone drove all over the road
and was respected everywhere he went. We should
also briefly mention his personal life, just
as it gives a bit of human context to the man
behind all these books. Yes. The records note
he married Diana Martin in 1956. And they had
a family together. Two sons and one daughter.
So he was balancing a busy family life alongside
this incredibly demanding career. He passed away
on August 31st, 1994. at the age of 66. Which
honestly feels quite young considering how relentlessly
active he was right up to the end. It is young
he died in Penarth, but when you look back at
what he managed to pack into those 66 years,
it is staggering. From his very first eager student
dig at a park in Bristol, all the way to running
the archaeology department at the National Museum
of Wales. So let's try to synthesize all of this
for the listener. We have discussed the big sights
guy, the man who managed Silchester and led the
rescue digs at Caroleon. And we have discussed...
The small details guy. The man who could write
a whole book on Roman brick stamps or Welsh industrial
tokens. I think the true synthesis of his life
is found in his ultimate job title, curator.
Curator. Yes. The word curator comes directly
from the Latin curare, which means to care for.
Oh, that's perfect. Boone card for history. He
didn't just extract it from the ground for his
own personal fame. He painstakingly organized
the chaotic old Edwardian collections when no
one else wanted to do the grunt work. He rushed
in to rescue vital sites that were literally
under threat from bulldozers. He cataloged thousands
of coins and tokens so that future generations
could actually understand the ancient economy.
He was a true steward of the past. He spent his
entire life ensuring that the things found in
the dirt were preserved, understood, and made
accessible for the future. And that actually
leads perfectly into a final thought about his
legacy. A provocative question for the listener
to mull over. Exactly. We talked earlier about
how Boone spent years at ready - museum fixing
up the old silchester excavations all that stuff
dug up before world war one right dealing with
the backlog well boone died in 1994 that is 30
years ago now which means it makes you wonder
right now at this very moment in museum basements
across the uk are there dusty crates from boone's
own era just sitting there waiting for the next
george boone to come along oh wow that is a haunting
thought history doesn't just stop We're always
continuously generating more of the past. Boone
spent his youth clearing the backlog of the Adordians,
but who is out there right now clearing the backlog
of the late 20th century? It is an endless cycle.
The work of a curator is never actually finished.
Never. There is always more to find, even in
the boxes of stuff we have already found. That
is a brilliant note to end on a reminder that
the guardianship of history is an ongoing relay
race. One that Boone ran exceptionally well.
Well, on that note, I think we will wrap up our
deep dive into George C. Boone, a man who proved
definitively that sometimes the smallest clay
tile stamp can tell the biggest, most important
story. Absolutely. A true guardian of the past.
Thank you so much for joining us on this journey
today, listener. We hope you look at the mundane
objects around you with a little more historical
curiosity now. We will see you on the next Deep
Dive. Take care, everyone.