236 EXCAVATIONS AT MAUMBURY RINGS. 



the bottom of one of them. The season's work, too, has 

 revealed the existence of a second quadrangular enclosure 

 recessed into the arena-wall on the W.S.W. of somewhat 

 different character from the so-called " den " on the S.S.W. 

 The floor at the northern entrance has been found to rise 

 towards the north, with boundary- walls diminishing in height, 

 but its limit has not yet been reached. The secondary trench, 

 or entrance of seventeenth century date (the existence of which 

 was known in 1908), bordering, and to a certain extent, 

 mutilating the Roman entrance, has been traced towards the 

 north, leaving no doubt in our minds of its direction and pur- 

 pose. It has become evident that, owing to the former exis- 

 ence of shafts in the rock-chalk, the Romans had to contend 

 with considerable difficulties in the construction of the arena 

 floor and its boundary walls in the northern, western, and 

 southern parts of the amphitheatre (the E. and S.E. limits of 

 the arena have not yet been examined) . In the N. and N.N.W. 

 the arena-wall of solid chalk was weak and deficient, and the 

 "inner trench," for the erection of an inner barrier to the arena, 

 instead of being hewn out of the virgin chalk, was in places 

 formed in chalk rubble and rammed chalk over the mouth of a 

 prehistoric shaft. On the W.N.W. three of these shafts were 

 interposed between the arena-wall and the inner trench for a 

 considerable distance. 



From levels of the solid chalk floor taken in various places, 

 it was ascertained that from the W.N.W. side of the arena 

 (Cutting XX.) to the E.N.E. side (most easterly part of Cutting 

 II. Extension) the arena floor gradually fell to the extent of 

 l'25ft., probably for the purpose of draining the floor from W. 

 to E. The chalk floor in the most northerly cutting of the en- 

 trance (Cutting XVII.) was found to be 2'25ft. higher than the 

 arena-floor on the E.N.E., and 1ft. higher than the arena-floor 

 on the W.N.W. ; and the floor in Cutting XVI., N. entrance, 

 was practically at the same level as the latter. 



As yet, we know nothing with any certainty of the age of the 

 embankment which encloses the arena, and, before the work 

 at Maumbury is complete, it will be necessary to make at least 



