The Association for Roman Archaeology SeptemberARA 2011 NEWSIssue 26 Detail of a fine mosaic on display in Tripoli Museum, Libya when the ARA Study Tour visited in November 2009. Marigold Norbye looks back at the tour on pages 6 to 11. Photo: © Nich Hogben. CONTENTS Page Contents and Contacts 2 Editorial 2 Archaeological Round-up 3, 12, 13, 22, 23, 30, 31 and 32 David E Johnston MA FSA His life in archaeology 4 and 5 ARA study tour of Classical and Roman Libya 6 to 11 Spotlight on: Dolaucothi Mines 14 and 15 Hadrian's Wall update 16 and 17 Novae and the Valetudinarium of Legio I Italica 18 and 19 Re-evaluating the identification of Roman military hospitals 20 Mithras in Scotland: spectacular new altars unveiled 20 and 21 Latin epigraphy: How to read and understand Roman inscriptions, Part I 24 to 29 South Warwickshire Roman Hoard 31 Booking form: ARA 2011 AGM and Symposium 33 Recent ARA grants 34 Donations and Bequests 35 Trustee nominations form 36 Photocopies of the booking form are In addition to his usual role as author EDITORIAL acceptable; alternatively you can of Archaeology Round-up, Anthony download a copy of the form from the Beeson, the ARA's Archivist, describes Before you start reading through the ARA's website, http://www. and analyses the imagery on the magazine, I suggest that you turn to associationromanarchaeology.org/. Mithras and Sol Invictus altars recently page 33 and complete the booking If you do cut out and send the form, discovered at Musselburgh in Scotland. form for this year's special please do take the time to read about We also have articles from regular symposium, which (together with the ARA's recent grants on page 34 contributors: Gareth Harney (spotlight the AGM), will be held at the British before you do so. One of the ARA's main th on Dolaucothi Roman mines), David Museum on Saturday, 26 November. aims is to support archaeological or Sleep (developments at Hadrian's Wall), associated research projects, and we do Lectures will be given by Drs Philip Martin Elvery (South Warwickshire this using donations made to the Kenrick, Nick Hodgson and Fraser Roman Hoard) and John Bithell (the Graham Webster Research Fund. Hunter on The Reign of Septimius military hospital at Novae, Bulgaria). Severus, in commemoration of the That done, you can enjoy the wealth of After John's article, Dr Patricia Baker, 1,800th anniversary of the emperor's articles written by members for this author of a British Archaeological death at York. The event will be held in issue! Marigold Norbye has been Report on military hospitals, discusses collaboration with The Roman Society. especially prolific. She provides an whether such sites should be classified Entry is by ticket only, and a limited excellent account of the 2009 ARA as valetudinaria. number of tickets have been allocated study tour to Libya, which members As ever, my thanks go out to all of our to each society, so it would be best to were fortunate to visit before the authors: without them there would be book up early to ensure you get a seat. current turmoil. Marigold also discusses no magazine. If you would like to write an Please send your form and cheque to the variety of Roman inscriptions in the article for ARA News, please get in touch the Director, Bryn Walters, at the ARA's first part of her article on epigraphy and – I'd be delighted to hear from you! Swindon address, as he holds the tickets reading Latin inscriptions – the second allocated to the ARA. part will appear in the spring issue. Nich Hogben, Editor. 2 transported to Netherhall (without the floor and were tightly packed together. missing fragment), and then back to the They had obviously been contained in Archaeological Senhouse Museum. As Tony Wilmott a purse or bag which had subsequently says "It is a little ironic that this altar, the rotted away. The surface area covered ROUND‑uP circumstances of whose discovery were by the coins was no more than 10 cms completely unknown, is now the only and some had corroded onto others, Maryport altar for which the suggesting that after deposition they NEW EXCAVATIONS AT archaeological context is firmly had not been disturbed. This all MARYPORT DESTROY established". The excavation of a pit suggests that rather than being lost the OLD MYTHS untouched by Senhouse in 1870 hoard was deliberately buried but never unfortunately did not yield more intact again disturbed. The sum represented A new excavation project at the Roman altars but did show that the stones in it by the hoard would probably be the fort at Camp Farm, Maryport, in had been used as packing for an equivalent nowadays of around £2,500– Cumbria, led by Tony Wilmott and enormous wooden post, one Roman £3,000. At the time, twenty-one denarii Professor Ian Haynes, has produced foot square. It soon became clear that would have represented about a tenth fascinating results. The site was first rather than being reverently and ritually of a ranking auxiliary's annual salary excavated in 1870 when an astonishing buried as had been believed, that the and was probably enough to buy a array of carved stonework and 17 altars Maryport altars had been rather used as good horse. The intriguing mystery is dedicated to Jupiter were discovered effective foundation packing for a why the coins were buried and why buried in pits on the site. These are now massive wooden construction on the they were never retrieved. in the adjacent Senhouse Museum, hillside that is not yet understood. Six The hoard of denarii has now been whose Trust commissioned the pits in a row identify one wall of the conserved at Vindolanda and reported excavation. Roman Maryport or Alauna building whilst another curving line of as treasure trove. It is to be hoped that it as it was called, was part of the Roman pits is also present. A worn silver coin will remain on display in the site museum frontier coastal defences that extended found in the packing may provide at Vindolanda. Photographs show that along the west coast from Hadrian's dating evidence. Wall. Hadrian's Wall Heritage has they are in a beautiful condition. submitted plans for a £10 million The end of the annual altar myth at http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/ archives/07/2011/archaeologists-discover-a-hoard-of- Roman Maryport visitor attraction. It is Maryport also leads one to wonder whether this cache of altars to Jupiter silver-roman-denarii-coins-at-vindolanda part of the development of the whole of (Newcastle) Evening Chronicle – 14. 7. 2011 Hadrian's Wall Country over the coming came not from the parade ground of the fort, as has always been assumed, years, designed to draw many more The Council for Kentish visitors to the north of England. but rather from a temple to the god in the nearby vicinity. Archaeology and The Association When the altars were discovered it was for Roman Archaeology present a Other investigations have located a assumed that they had been buried as joint conference entitled: curving enclosure ditch and have part of the annual ritual of renewal of revealed an entrance on its west side vows to the State and prayers for the New ideas on some major leading to the extramural settlement, emperor's health. On January 3rd each which is known from geophysical Roman villas, including year new altars were erected and old survey. Pottery from the ditch fill is now Chedworth, Lullingstone ones buried. It was thought that there dated to the late third or early fourth was only one altar active to Jupiter and Great Witcombe century. The ditch is associated with the Optimus Maximus beside the parade- pits because an altar fragment was nd ground at any given moment, and a on Saturday 22 October 2011 found in its primary fill, but at the new one was perhaps dedicated by the moment there is no firm evidence to 2.00pm until 5.30pm unit commander each year, at which prove that the ditch and the pits go time the old altar was ceremoniously together. at the Old Sessions Lecture Theatre, buried beneath the parade-ground so North Holmes Campus, as to prevent desecration. http://www.hadrians-wall.org/ResourceManager/ Documents/Maryport%20Excavation%20Blog%20No% Canterbury Christchurch University, The new excavation has located the pits 203_107_634465894099605000.pdf Canterbury, Kent http://www.heritageandhistory.com/contents1a/2011/07/ in which the landowner Humphrey ritual-burial-theory-overturned-in-maryport/ Senhouse discovered the altars in 1870 ?doing_wp_cron Speakers include: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-14173527 and has re-excavated some. One Dr Martin Henig yielded a fragment of a rosette- decorated pulvinar or bolster from the and Bryn Walters top corner of an altar. This joined with A HOARD OF DENARII FOUND another altar already in the collection AT VINDOLANDA Tickets £5.00 but which was not known to have Tickets are available from CKA, originated from the same cache, having Excavations at Vindolanda have 7 Sandy Ridge, Borough Green, been first recorded in the gardens of uncovered a hoard of twenty-one silver Kent TN1 8HP (SAE please) Netherhall, where it was being used as denarii in the centre of the clay floor of a the base of an ornamental sundial in centurion's quarters dating from the Website: www.the-cka.fsnet.co.uk 1725. The presence of the fragment in late Antonine period (c. AD 180–200). This information is correct at the the pit proves that the altar was The coins had been buried in a shallow time of publication originally found in Maryport, pit in the foundation material of the 3 ARA study tour of Classical and Roman Libya 20-27 November 2009 As Libya is torn apart by civil strife, making the headlines on than Latin, as Cyrenaica became part of the Eastern Byzantine a regular basis, it is time to look back at the wonderful study empire when the Roman empire was split into two, before tour that ARA organised there in November 2009.