The Parisi: Britons and Romans in Eastern Yorkshire

by Halkon

The Parisi were a tribe located somewhere within the present day East Riding of Yorkshire, UK, known from a brief reference by Ptolemy. They were originally immigrants from Gaul and share their name with the tribe that occupied modern day France. Fairly obvious from their name, they gave the French capital its name. The investigation of the Parisi began in the 16th and 17th centuries, following the trend for antiquarian exploration elsewhere in Britain. Before that the remains of Roman buildings encountered in medieval East Yorkshire were treated with little respect and used as a resource. The Parisi tells this captivating story of the history of the archaeology of The Parisi, from the initial investigations in the 16th century right through to modern day investigations.

304 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2013

Reviews

[Clive Ashman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A local farmer's son whose Norwegian surname betrays Peter Halkon and his family's Viking heritage, the author is a former teacher, now academic historian at the University of Hull, who has spent much of his life studying Iron Age and Roman East Yorkshire. As the unique territory of that distinctive Celtic tribe, the Parisi, his authoritative new book about them represents the culmination and compilation of all the author's diligent researches and discoveries across the whole East Riding to date.
Attractively-packaged with an excellent selection of photographs, this important new publication assembles in academic style much information previously only incrementally-available from Halkon's many useful archaeological pamphlets & reports published locally over the years - sources already found valuable for checking background detail to 1st edition of my own 'MOSAIC' (Voreda Books 2008). To these solid foundations, the author now adds many intriguing points of new information he has gathered from more recent archaeological digs, field-walking and aerial photography. Separate chapter headings collate almost every physical, cultural, geophysical, geological and topographic fact discoverable by the author about the lost world of this ancient tribe - including how well or otherwise they adapted to life under the Romans, especially on the site of a certain villa down at Brantingham!
Despite his necessarily-dry academic style, an eventual picture builds in most compelling fashion of the mysterious lives and even more mysterious deaths of these 'Peoples of the Spear' who once occupied East Yorkshire, two thousand years ago. With a revised 2nd edition of my 'MOSAIC' due & nearly complete, I was equally glad of the chance to check it against the updated picture Halkon paints, inspired to rely on it for the accuracy of my latest - keep it archaeologically-right.
So, to summarise, an important history book which I wouldn't hesitate to recommend to anyone else equally interested in how such a fascinating era in our collective past unrolled across this distinctive part of Yorkshire, whether as amateur or academic student.

[Clint Wastling · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an informative read, bringing my knowledge more up to date on recent developments re The Parisian of East Yorkshire. The sections on climate change and sea level rise in the later Iron Age put the distribution of finds in context. Overall an interesting account of our local Celtic tribe and their interactions with others and eventually Rome.