Life in Newburgh on Ythan

By Talpa

New and old architecture

The Scottish farm workers of old used to live in small buildings, known as bothies, where they slept and cooked their own food. Not to be confused with chaumers which provided only sleeping accommodation, the men being fed in the farmhouse kitchen.
These three "cosy, bespoke, self-catering bothies, that bring the outdoors in with stunning panoramic views, in a tranquil coastal setting" are a new local tourist venture.


Now for yesterday's puzzle. It might look like an old biscuit, or breakfast cereal, but it wasn't! It was a fragment of a Roman tubi fittili, made from clay and  baked in the sun, which I once picked up in Tunisia.
Tubi fittili  are hollow terracotta vaulting tubes which were employed in Roman architecture to construct a lightweight framework for a vault, an arched structure, which formed the ceiling of a room. Vaulting tubes were used primarily between the 2nd and 7th centuries C.E., often in the construction of bathhouses and major churches throughout the Roman Empire. They are found predominantly in North Africa, though examples have also been found in Sicily, Italy, Spain and Britain, as well as in shipwrecks throughout the Mediterranean.
Arachne, Freespiral, Burradoo, BobsBlipsFilm and gblrps came close!

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