Readers of Britannia will know that for the study of the Late Iron Age and Roman period Colchester (Camulodunum) is of critical importance. They will know of Cunobelin's great oppidum, of the Roman fortress and its remarkable transition to a colonia, of the Boudiccan catastrophe of a.d. 60, and of the later town with its many fine houses. Having an overview of the enormous amount of archaeological endeavour which has taken place in the town is, therefore, very valuable and to be warmly welcomed in spite of the shortcomings I allude to below.

The volume is one of the latest in a series of urban archaeological assessments sponsored by English Heritage, as part of its long-running project Managing the Urban Archaeological Resource. The project in each chosen town begins with the compilation of an Urban Archaeological Database (UAD), an enhancement of the local Historic Environment Record (HER). The second stage is the assessment which uses the database to produce a new account of the development of the urban area from earliest times. The Colchester volume adopts a structure similar to the volume for St Albans (R. Niblett and I. Thompson, Alban's Buried Towns (2005)). Following two preliminary chapters, ‘History of Archaeology in Colchester’ and ‘Geology and Deposit Model’, there are 11 period-based chapters. Appendices take the form of a series of period-based gazetteers. Each period-based chapter begins with a general historical framework and summaries of past work and finds evidence (the latter by Nina Crummy, the doyenne of Colchester's archaeology). An account of the archaeological evidence forms the largest part of each chapter which is concluded by reviews of the current state of knowledge and the potential for future research. The concluding parts are written by Philip Crummy (PC), long-time Director of the Colchester Archaeological Trust; they are refreshingly lucid and masterpieces of compression. One cannot help wondering why the Crummys did not write the whole volume.

Producing something which is both concise in its arguments and comprehensive in summarising the contents of a very substantial database was bound to be difficult. All the more reason, therefore, for thinking carefully about who this sort of volume is actually aimed at. It was never going to be a good read for the general public — for this one can do no better than PC's City of Victory (1997). The volume should, however, be a starting point for further research. It is critical, therefore, to be able to find one's way easily through the data and in this respect the volume comes up short in my view. For example, to locate a particular ‘Monument’ or ‘Element’, as they are called in HER-speak (to you and me, a ‘site’), one gets a number from the text and can look at the plans, where one will find a few site names, but also a blizzard of dots with ‘E’ or ‘M’ numbers (and some unexplained dots without numbers). One's heart sinks and one feels it ought to be easier to look for the grid reference by consulting the appendices. However, firstly, one has to know not only what period the site is listed under (usually but not always obvious), and how it is classified (e.g. ‘burial’, ‘infant burial’ or ‘inhumation’) which is by no means always obvious. Why not have all monument or element numbers in one list, in numerical order? It would have been better also to have the dots numbered in order, say top to bottom, on the figures with a key to take the reader to the Monument/Element number and vice versa. Finally, there are no National Grid references on the plans! Had I the space I would make a number of other criticisms of the volume's usability (e.g. why no systematic quantification data for the finds, bones, pottery, etc.?).

To conclude, this is a worthy and useful attempt to tell the world about Colchester's archaeology, but it is a pity that the authors do not seem to have been fully briefed as to how best to go about their task. I also have to say it is mostly a rather dull read. As I waded through one building description after another, it seemed that rather than trying to engage the reader's interest in the archaeology of Colchester, the authors were beating it into submission. I kept thinking of my first ever dig, at Lion Walk, and of the thrill of seeing those Boudiccan burnt layers — which proved that Tacitus was right! It is such a pity that so little of what is really exciting about Colchester's archaeology comes through in the volume. Next time let us have a Boudicca of the written word — who knows about maps!