Roman Butcher and his Bookkeeping Wife

Famous Funerary Relief of a Roman Butcher
and his Bookkeeping Wife
  
Ancient Roman butchers had standardized chopping blocks, hatchets and cleavers along with refined butchery practices. This second Century funerary relief panel shows a typical Roman butchers shop. The butcher is by his table with his hatchet
and the meat displayed on the walls. His bookkeeping
wife sits opposite.
 
An ancient Roman relief with a scene of a butcher shop.
Rome, 120-150 AD
 
Relief Museo della Civiltà Romana. Rome, Lazio, Italy. Photo: pinterest.com

Recently in Ipplepen, Devon, England, a Roman butchers shop has been discovered. Cow bones found at the site prove that this butcher slaughtered local cows for their prime cuts of meat. This prime beef along with other meats was delivered by road using the sophisticated road system of the empire in the 4th century AD.

  
A cow skull being unearthed at the Ipplepen site.
(Ipplepen Archaeology Project)
Photo: smithsonianmag.com
 
The normal practice for cattle would have been to keep them into old age for the pulling of ploughs etc. but at this site, they were one and a half to two years old. The right age for producing the highest quality meat. This means that this site was being used for professional beef production. 
  
Roman Britain by Guy de la Bédoyère
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This lively, authoritative account of a crucial period in Britains history has been revised and updated to incorporate the very latest findings and research. Guy de la Bédoyère the popular face of Romano-British archaeological studies puts the Roman conquest and occupation within the larger context of Romano-British society and how it functioned. With nearly 300 illustrations and dramatic aerial views of Roman sites, and brimming with the very latest research and discoveries, Roman Britain will delight and inform all those with an interest in this seminal epoch of British history.
 
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