Analecta Praehistorica Leidensia
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ANALECTA PRAEHISTORICA LEIDENSIA PUBLICATION OF THE FACULTY OF ARCHAEOLOGY LEIDEN UNIVERSITY EXCERPTA ARCHAEOLOGICA LEIDENSIA EDITED BY CORRIE BAKELS AND HANS KAMERMANS LEIDEN UNIVERSITY 2015 998163_APL_45_Voorwerk.indd8163_APL_45_Voorwerk.indd IIIIII 116/07/156/07/15 113:003:00 Uncovering Roman fort Matilo in Leiden, 70-250 AD Jasper de Bruin The passing of my dear colleague and friend Willem Willems 1 INTRODUCTION on December 13, 2014, is the immediate reason for writing In the south-eastern part of the modern city of Leiden lies a this article, that was originally intended for a liber Roman fort that was part of the Lower Rhine Frontier of amicorum on the occasion of his 65th birthday on July 19, imperial Rome. According to the Peutinger Map, the fort was 2015. Willem had been appointed as professor in called Matilone, but was probably called Matilo (fi g.1). Provincial-Roman archaeology in Leiden in 1991. In the In Roman times, the site was located on the western bank of autumn of 2006, freshly starting work at Leiden University, the river Rhine. The northern border of the site consisted of a I took over the course of Provincial-Roman archaeology, that wide gully, formed by the mouth of the Corbulo canal, which Willem had successfully taught for so many years. Being at this point fl owed into the Rhine. The canal, dug around occupied with the Faculty’s annual fi eld school for our fi rst 50 AD (De Kort and Raczynski-Henk 2014, 63), connected year’s students, research in the fi eld of Provincial-Roman the river Rhine with the Meuse estuary. The site was archaeology was not an integral part of my appointment, but declared archaeological monument in 1976 and in 2008 the this changed when Willem became not only the supervisor of protected area of the monument was enlarged (de Vries 2008, my dissertation, but also my direct supervisor at work. Apart 64-69). Despite reports of archaeological fi nds from the early from being dean of our Faculty, Willem was very ambitious sixteenth century onwards and several years of extensive about setting up a full course in Provincial Roman archaeological research in the twentieth century, the exact archaeology in Leiden. In order to do so, attractive research location of Leiden’s Roman fort remained unknown. Only in projects, including excavations, were part of the strategy. 1999 the north-western corner of the fort was discovered, In 2008, the Municipality of Leiden approached Willem although the exact dimensions of it remained unclear with a request for assistance in an excavation. In the coming (Polak et al. 2004a). In 2008, the Municipality of Leiden years, the site of the Roman fort within Leiden’s boundaries approached the Faculty of Archaeology to participate in the and its immediate surroundings were to be redeveloped as an search for the south-eastern corner of the Roman fort. archaeological park, with the outline of the fort forming the base of the park’s design. In order to do so, the south-eastern 2 RESEARCH METHODS corner of the fort had to be located by means of an Because the site is a protected archaeological site, the fi rst excavation. The question was whether the Faculty wanted to step was to investigate whether it was possible to locate the participate in this research. Willem took up the challenge as forts’ contour in a non-destructive way. Therefore, accessible an opportunity to gain more insight in the lay-out of one of parts of the site were examined using a Groundtracer, a the last unexplored Roman forts in the Netherlands. The fact geophysical survey method (fi g. 2). The most important that a substantial heritage element was involved in the feature that was detected was a zone orientated northwest- project, was also right up the street for Willem. In 2009, the southeast that might be the remains of the eastern wall of the excavation was carried out and we were able to resolve the fort or one or more of the fort’s debris fi lled ditches long lasting discussion of the location and lay-out of the fort. (de Bruin et al. 2009, 14-17). This interpretation, however, In this article, the main results of this research are presented. had to be verifi ed, because there was a possibility that the I am glad that Willem got to know the results of our observed features were of a later date. A borehole survey by excavation and that he was able to see the reconstruction in the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Ministry of Education, the park for himself in 2013. Looking back, I can say I was Culture and Science confi rmed that the debris was of honoured that I could work with Willem, even though this possible Roman date, but the context of the material could proved to be of rather short duration. not be identifi ed. In the end, excavation became inevitable. 998163.indb8163.indb 118181 116/07/156/07/15 113:033:03 182 ANALECTA PRAEHISTORICA LEIDENSIA 45 Figure 1 The place Matilone on the Peutinger Map. The site is situated between Praetoriu Agrippine (Valkenburg) and Albanianis (Alphen aan den Rijn). Picture courtesy of the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek / Vienna Cod.324, segm.1 To limit the extent of the disturbance of the archaeological At fi rst, the trench was planned on the site of the local monument, a small trench of 25 metres long and two metres community gardens, but this caused too much protest by the wide would be dug, perpendicular to the northwest-southeast owners. More to the south of the gardens, a disused orientated zone with debris. If the debris zone was indeed the greenhouse became the only possible location for the fort’s wall, then it could be unearthed right in the middle of excavation. The excavation was carried out by a combined the trench. The possibility to dig a second trench, if required, team of archaeologists from the Municipality of Leiden and was included in the research design. the Faculty of Archaeology. A group of fi ve students participated in the project as well (fi g. 3). Even though excavating in a greenhouse seems very attractive considering the rainy Dutch climate, the weather during the excavation was sunny and fairly warm. Because the greenhouse had previously been heated, there were not many windows and in combination with the weather outside, the temperature regularly rose above forty degrees Celsius, even, in one occa- sion, causing the mechanical digger to fail because of the heat. The topsoil in the greenhouse was completely dried out, creating a very dusty environment for the research. Despite these diffi culties, the excavation in the greenhouse can be regarded as successful. 3 THE EXCAVATION From 7 to 25 September 2009 the fi rst trench (trench 1) was excavated, running across the width of the greenhouse. On 5 and 6 October 2009, a second trench was dug (trench Figure 2 Surveying the site with a groundtracer. Photo: author 2), in order to locate the southern wall of the fort. Trench 1 998163.indb8163.indb 118282 116/07/156/07/15 113:033:03 J. DE BRUIN – UNCOVERING ROMAN FORT MATILO 183 Figure 3 Students participating in the excavation. Photo: Erfgoed Leiden en Omstreken yielded the most information, and is, therefore, discussed in In the north profi le of trench 1, it appeared that the robber more detail. trench of the fort’s wall was much broader, as if there was another robber trench attached to the remains of the wall of 3.1 The fort’s wall the fort. In the most north-western corner of the trench 1, Because of the complex stratigraphy Trench 1 (fi g. 4) was a small part of this other robber trench was found at right excavated in seven levels. The fi rst level merely removed the angles to the fort’s wall (fi g. 5, B). No driven poles were dusty topsoil as the fi rst in situ fi nds and features were found under this shallow feature, suggesting that this recorded directly under the topsoil, only fi fty centimetres structure was less heavy constructed than the wall of the fort. below the surface level. Instead of the expected robber trench Although a latrine could have been placed near the forts’ of the fort’s wall, a broad zone of Roman debris was found wall, such a structure should be founded much deeper, in the centre of trench 1. Apparently, the wall of the fort was because it had to be connected to a sewer. Therefore, it is located somewhere else. Yet, in the most western part of the possible that this robber trench marks the foundation of a trench, the edge of a robber trench was observed (fi g. 5, A). tower that was bonded to the wall. It is known that towers After permission by the Cultural Heritage Agency to enlarge were not founded as deeply as the walls of the forts itself, the trench here by 4,5 metres, a broad robber trench was as has been observed in Utrecht (Kloosterman 2010, 21, with exposed. During the course of the excavation this structure references to other examples). turned out to be the wall of the fort, because the characteris- tic postholes and wooden piles emerged from under the 3.2 Ditches of the fort robber trench (fi g. 5, A; fi g. 6). The same situation was found A series of ditches were found to the east of the fort’s wall. in trench 2, making it possible to reconstruct the dimensions The oldest ditches, consisting of a ditch that was exposed of the stone built fort.