What the heck is a lek?
Males great bustards perform spectacular courtship displays, gathering at a ‘lek’ or small display ground to try to impress the females.
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This bronze votive figurine of a bull with two deities on its back was found during Mortimer Wheeler’s excavations of the Romano-Celtic temple at Maiden Castel in 1934. It dates to the late 4th century CE, making it around 1650 years old.
From the foundation of Rome in c.752 BCE until 313 CE, the Roman Republic and subsequent Roman Empire predominantly practised a polytheistic religion, meaning they worshipped and believed in multiple gods and goddesses. For the Romans, different gods represented different aspects of life and the world, and had varying levels of power and influence. These gods were often quite human in their personalities, as were believed to act on similar emotions to humans, like greed, jealousy, anger, and love. Typically, each god would have temples dedicated exclusively to them.
Many of the planets and moons in our solar system are named after Roman gods and goddesses: for example, Mars was the god of war, Neptune the sea, Venus love, and Pluto the underworld. As the Romans travelled to and conquered other civilisations around the Mediterranean and Northern Europe, they adopted some of the gods from other religions into their own. In order to show their love and commitment to a god, Romans would leave offerings or votives at the temple of their chosen god. This might convince the god or goddess to give the person good luck or help them in some way. These offerings could be food, money, or some other valuable, such as this bronze figurine.
Key Stage 2 History
Dorset Museum & Art Gallery Key Stage 2 workshops: Discover Durnovarian Dorset, Roman Town House.
This figurine depicts a bull with the statues of two deities on its back. All kinds of animals were often considered the agents of the gods, communicating for them or carrying out their bidding. Because of this, the giving of a bull figurine as an offering to the gods may have helped to ensure that the gods would hear the prayer of the person giving it. In ancient Rome, bulls were symbolic of strength and wealth and had deep connections to religion. Roman religion required regular ritual sacrifices to appease the gods, and bulls and other bovines were often killed for this purpose. This provides another reason for this votive being in the shape of a bull, as it symbolised an animal sacrifice but was affordable and practical for an individual. It is possible the deities on the bull’s back were the ones being asked for help by the person who made the offering.
Just outside of Dorchester lies Maiden Castle, an Iron Age hillfort. The earliest known human activity on the site dates from around 4000 BCE, over 6000 years ago. In around 600 BCE, the first hillfort was built on the site and it was then expanded to almost treble the size in 450 BCE, making it one of the largest hillforts in Western Europe occupied by the Iron Age Durotriges tribe. Maiden Castle was surrounded by deeply dug ditches which acted as fortifications to defend against attackers. At its height it was the local centre of population and trade, with organised streets and round houses. However, in the 150 years running up to the Roman conquest of Britain in 43 CE, Maiden Castle had been in decline. After the Romans arrived, the population centre shifted to Durnovaria, modern day Dorchester, 3km NE of the hill fort, which started out as a military base but grew into a sizeable town from about 67 CE onwards.
It is not fully known the extent to which Romans in Dorset used existing fortifications during their conquest and occupation. Maiden Castle in particular bears little evidence of it remaining an important military site, and it seems to have fallen into decline before the Roman conquest of the mid-1st century CE. Roman objects (pottery, brooches, pins) have been found around the Eastern entrance to the fort, which suggests that it had some use for the first few decades of Roman occupation. The main evidence for Roman use of the hill fort is the mid/late-4th century CE temple and surrounding buildings. This temple was built in service of Romano-Celtic worship and had two smaller buildings nearby, one of which was a shrine and the other potentially the home of the temple’s priest. Because of the Romans’ tendency to adopt foreign gods as their own, it is theorised that the Roman temple atop Maiden Castle might have been dedicated to a Celtic god that had been embraced by the local Roman population. This view is supported by the fact that the temple was built away from the nearby population centre, as Christianity was made the state religion for Romans by Emperor Constantine the Great in 313 CE, so worship of other gods may have been pushed to the outskirts by the end of that century.
“The reason this lovely statue stood out to me is it depicts the closeness and friendship of two male gods. I lost my twin brother at a young age, this also happened to my twin grandsons as one died a few weeks after birth. The statue reminded me of the closeness and male bonding between brothers that I never experienced in my lifetime. The older I get the more I think what if my brother survived and how different my life would have been.”
– Kevin Gardiner, Museum Volunteer
Males great bustards perform spectacular courtship displays, gathering at a ‘lek’ or small display ground to try to impress the females.
The great bustard has a dignified slow walk but tends to run when disturbed, rather than fly.
The hen-bird on display at The Salisbury Museum was one of the last great bustards to be eaten in the town!