Verulamium Museum in St Albans has launched an exhibition exploring class and status in Roman Britain.
The Superior: Inferior exhibition, guest curated by ancient historian Andrew Deathe, encourages visitors to think about how social class in Roman Verulamium reflects society today.
Andrew said: "Social status was important to the Roman residents of Verulamium and this exhibition explores how they showed and used their social position.
"For me, the best history makes you think 'What would I do if I was there?', so we encourage visitors to think about how we view class today, how they would react in different social situations and how they would measure themselves against the ancient citizens?
"We’re all humans, so are we really that different from our ancestors? Like us, they had their preferences, dislikes, anxieties and differences, they just expressed them through different objects and technologies."
Visitors to the exhibition are taken on an interactive journey where they meet seven pairs of imagined inhabitants of ancient Verulamium.
Brought to life by St Albans illustrator Simon Maskell, each pairing represents a different situation and uses archaeological objects, imagined conversations and other clues to help visitors determine who was of a higher or lower status.
Andrew said: "Some differences in Roman society remained fixed.
"In the law, women were nearly always considered inferior to men; Roman citizens were always considered superior to even freeborn non-Romans.
"Romans usually showed their class and status through their occupation, their possessions and their property.
"That is just the same as modern British society, and we ask visitors to think about that, and to compare their lives with those of the people who occupied this town before them."
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Visitors are asked to drop a token into a box that they feel best represents their class today.
The exhibition is part of Verulamium Museum's 'Revisiting the Romans' series.
Catherine Newley, audience development manager at St Albans Museums, said: "It’s been a delight to work with Andrew on this incredibly insightful and absorbing project and we look forward to seeing how visitors perceive class and society over the summer."
The exhibitions runs until Monday, November 11.
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