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Roman Forts and the Military

 

General Information About Roman Forts:

These spaces were permanent or semi-permanent bases for Roman troops. Most fort spaces occupy around 20 hectares. The Roman troops occupying these spaces were often auxiliary’s. They were not Roman citizens, but instead were drafted from other provinces within the Roman Empire (Historic England, 2011).

Many of the earliest forts had turf ramparts and timber internal buildings, these were usually constructed during the initial conquest and are common in the first century. The dominant shape for forts is rectangular, and these would have been surrounded by outer ditches. Forts often went through a second phase of construction where the timber fort would be replaced with a stone fort, this would often be surrounded by stone walls rather than timber ramparts

 

Internal Layout of Forts:

Forts would have been divided by internal roads/streets, with administrative centres in the middle of the fort as one of the central buildings. There also would have been workshops and equipment stores, and the Granaries, which were long narrow buildings with raised floors supported on posts

 

Function:

Forts were spaces used to house troops who were responsible for controlling the surrounding territory (Historic England 2011). Forts were linked together by the Roman road system, which provided a network to strengthen their control

 

The brief overview above gives you a bit of background information about the fort space itself and its internal layout, but, what about the people who occupied these spaces? We have already seen that auxiliary units most likely wouldn’t have been Roman citizens themselves, and the fact they travelled from other provinces outside England suggests that they may have had different ways of displaying their identities to the Pre-Roman and Roman Britons. Below are a few artefacts found at Ribchester, with some of them coming from our excavations.

 

Evidence for Roman Soldiers at Ribchester:

Ribchester Helmet:

• Any look at Roman military artefacts from Ribchester has to start with the famous Ribchester Helmet.
• The Ribchester Helmet was discovered in 1796 by children playing on the waste-ground behind their cottage.
• Experts have suggested that the Helmet originates from the 1^st-2^nd century and was not likely to have been used in combat as it was such a finely crafted piece of equipment. Instead the interpretation is that it would have been used in mock battles (British Museum, 2018)

 

 

The next few artefact types are examples of the types of objects we have found during our excavations, and don’t necessarily represent the most common artefacts associated with the Roman military.

 

Hobnails:

• A common find at fort sites, and something we have found a lot of during our excavations at Ribchester, are hobnails.
• Hobnails are associated with Roman shoes, and at some sites, they have even been discovered in the pattern of a shoe shape, with the leather having worn away.
• There has been research into the pattern of the hobnails and the types of shoe that they would have comprised!
• So far during our excavations at Ribchester we have found over 80 hobnails!

 

Horse Fittings:

• Decoration on horse harnesses were one of the main ways that an individual could show off their rank or wealth
• During our excavations so far we have found evidence of 3 objects associated with horse fittings
• We have also found 1 example of a terret ring. Terret rings are metal loops, which would be part of a horse harness. When in use the reins would run from the drivers hand, through a terret ring, and attach to the horses bit to all the horse to be guided without becoming tangled up.
• We also have an example of a hipposandle, which would protect the hoof of a horse and was the predecessor of the horseshoe.

 

 

• Button and Loop Fastener:
• These fasteners would have been used to hold two pieces of fabric together, and are often associated with the fastening of a dress or cloak
• Fasteners are quite common finds during the excavations of Roman forts suggesting that they were associated with the military
• So far during our excavations we have found 2 fasteners

 

 

 

 

 

Further Reading:

https://content.historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/iha-roman-forts-fortresses/romanfortsfortresses.pdf/

 

Women and Children In Forts:

 

Previous Arguments:

The traditional argument for the presence of women in forts is that they simply were not there.

These traditional models advocate that forts were male/military dominated environments and that officers families would not be present within them. As such, the mobility of the military is focused solely around the movement of soldiers. Previously, it has been understood that women and children would have been associated with settlements outside of the fort structure, but not present within the fort space itself. Evidence in support of this has been interpreted from Roman laws. Under Augustus there was a ruling banning soldiers from marrying, this was eventually lifted in the second century under Septimus Severus.

 

Archaeological Evidence:

 

It has been suggested that the commander’s house in particular was designed to house a family unit. These structures were large and Mediterranean in style. Evidence from Vindolanda features a correspondence between Flavius Cerialis, which implies he was accompanied by his wife (Campbell, 2010). Within the commanders house structure at Vindolanda there is also evidence of multiple small shoes, thought to belong to children (Campbell, 2010). A tombstone has been discovered in High Rochester, thought to have come from just outside the fort space. The inscription is written by Julia Lucilla in memory of ‘her well-deserving husband’ implying that they would have been living in the same space (Roman Inscriptions of Britain, 2018). Another tombstone from Corbirdge was erected in memory of Ertola aged four years and sixty days, thought to be a child of one of the soldiers within the fort (Roman Inscriptions of Britain, 2018).

 

Arguably, this evidence would suggest that women and children were associated with fort spaces, and it can be implied that their presence is not just restricted to the surrounding vicus’ outside of the forts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

At Ribchester:

So far, the presence of women and children in forts at Ribchester is unclear. During our recent excavations, we have found fragments of a shale bracelet, as well as multiple blue glass beads. In general terms these types of artefacts would be associated with women, however, there is no definite answer and it is quite possible that they would have belonged to the men

 

 

 

 

 

I hope that from this brief overview you can see that the evidence for women and children inside fort spaces is still open to much debate. However, it is entirely possible that family life played a much greater role within the military than previously thought.

 

 

 

Further Reading:

https://romaninscriptionsofbritain.org/

 

http://blog.english-heritage.org.uk/role-women-hadrians-wall/

This blog aims to provide a whistle stop tour of Roman coins. However, this by no means represents the entirety of the Roman Coins, denominations, or, designs that can be seen throughout the Empire. Instead we’re aiming to provide a background to the types of coins that have been found in the UK

 

Denominations:

Just like our current currency system, the Roman system was made up of different denominations of coin, with different materials being used to create the higher status coins.

The Roman currency system underwent a series of changes due to inflation, and the debasement of some of the current coinage of the time. Debasement occurs when the base metal of the coin was reduced, and therefore its’ value was considered to be less. The most popular denominations of coins will be discussed in more detail below;

 

Aureus:

• Largest denomination
• Gold unit
• First issued from the 1^st century BC to the beginning of the 4^th century AD
• Most popular between the 1^st and 2^nd century AD
• Equivalent of 25 denarius

 

Denarius:

• Silver unit
• Most commonly found coin by the reign of Septimus Severus (Reece 1975, 300)
• Equivilant of 10 As
• Struck between 211BC and 244AD
• Replaced by the double denarius in the 3^rd century (antoninianus)

 

As:

• Copper alloy unit
• Reduced production by the 3^rd century

 

Under Emperor Augustus two additional units were introduced, the dupondii and the sestertii (Crawford 1970, 41). The exact reason for these additional denomination is unknown; however, it has been argued that the Empire was decreasing the fineness of their coins in order to allow their raw materials to go further. Therefore, in order to maintain the values of the coins in their monetary system, additional denominations needed to be added;

 

Dupondii;

• Equivilant of 2 Aes
• Copper Alloy unit
• During the reign of Nero, the obverse image usually wore a radiate crown

 

Sestertii:

• Copper Alloy unit
• Equivilant of 4 Aes under Augustus
• Commonly found in the UK between 50AD to 260AD
• No longer minted towards the end of the 3^rd century

 

 

Inscriptions:

Imperial Coins:

• Emperor on the obverse
• Inscriptions feature the name of the ruler, title and honorary titles
• To read inscriptions start at 6 o’clock (the base of the neck) and follow the writing clockwise

Reading Inscriptions:

• The first part of the inscription shows the emperors name
• Emperors may also include the names of emperors before them to align themselves with their successes
• In this case Marcus Aurelieus choses to identify with his father Antoninus Pius – M ANTONINVS

 

 

 

• Most Emperors also included the name of the first emperor Augustus
• This became associated with symbols of power
• AVG – Augustus

 

• The rest of the inscription usually focuses on religious, political, military or honorary titles
• Here ARM represents victories in Armenia
• The last part of the inscription also focuses on victories in the east – PARTH MAX

 

 

 

Crowns:

The types of crown on a coin can help us ascertain the denomination and the date of issue

 

Laureate:

• Wreath of laurel, oak or ivy branches
• Most common

 

Radiate:

• Spiky crown (associated with the sun god Sol)
• Used on double denominations (dupondius)

 

Diadem:

• Band of metal or cloth (which can often be decorated)

 

Mints:

• Mints refer to where the coins were produced
• From the 3^rd century AD Roman mints began printing mint marks on the reverse of the coin to show where it was made
• Juno Moneta is the Roman goddess concerned with the personification of money, and sometimes features on coins

 

Currency System:

• 1 Aureus = 25 Denarii = 250 aes
• Following periods of financial instability (debasement) additional denominations were added into this system such as the sestertius in order to try and stabilise coin values

 

Debasement:

• Lowers the value of currency
• Occurs when the precious metal of the coin is reduced and new denominations are added to the currency system to try and counter balance the effects of inflation.

 

Contemporary Copies:

• Contemporary copies are coins produced unofficially at the same time as the official coinage is being produced. There is an increased in contemporary copies from the 3^rd century due to the monetary instability of the period
• The most commonly found copies in England are Barbarous Radiates.
• Barbarous Radiates are usually smaller in size, irregularly shaped and lighter in weight than official issues. They also show poor quality art work, such as inscriptions with errors or below standard portraits and reverse designs

 

Ribchester Coins:

• So far at Ribchester we have found over 70 coins
• There are a range of denominations and dates represented, supporting the interpretation of a long period of occupation in the fort
• You may have seen one of our coins on the most recent series of Digging for Britain

 

 

 

 

 

 

For a more comprehensive understand of the world of Roman coins, please visit the Portable Antiquities resources here: https://finds.org.uk/romancoins

 

Hi everyone,

 

As we posted last week, the plans are now all illustrated! Hooray! But the life of a research assistant is never done (or dull for that matter). The next task is to organise our photo archives. Each year our student supervisors are given a camera to document all of the contexts and features they excavate. Over the course of the last 3 years, our students have taken over 1300 photographs! (I could be here some time!)

 

In other news, you may remember in our previous blog post, we hinted that we were introducing ‘themed’ months, to give you a bit more insight into Roman Ribchester, and the work we have done on the project so far. February sees the introduction of our Artefact Month!

 

 

Each week throughout February, we will be introducing different groups of artefacts that we have found on site and giving you a bit of background into how we identify them, and what we think they meant to the people that used them. We hope that this whistle-stop tour behind the scenes of our finds will give you a better indication of the work we are doing when we come to the village each summer.  A rough guide of the content we are planning is in the table below;

 

Week 1	Introduction to Artefact Month
Week 2	Coins
Week 3	The Female – beads, bracelets and females in forts
Week 4	Military – equipment, horse fittings

 

 

Check back next week for an introduction to Roman Coins, the images used on them, the types of coins they have, and how we go about interpreting the writing on them!

 

 

These photographs won’t organise themselves, until next week,

Viki

We’re Back!

An important part of the Ribchester Revisited project is student training. During the dig more experienced masters students run small teams, giving them experience in leadership and team management. As part of their work the masters students then complete reports on their section of the trench. This blog post discussing the guardhouse is by Louise Clempson, the masters student tasked with the guardhouse excavation.

 

Ribchester Revisited 2017 saw the excavation of the guard house floor located in the northern section of the trench: as shown by figure 1 above. As a Masters student, I supervised the team excavating the guardhouse. The perimeter of the clay surface was recorded using specialised equipment (total station) in order to construct an image of the guardhouse in the lab. Furthermore every object found was 3D recorded using this equipment and given its own unique identification number. This allows us to understand exactly where in the guardhouse each type of object was found. From this, connections could be made regarding specific patterns that cannot be detected in the field. All the finds within the guardhouse were mapped using a GIS computer program (QGIS). As you can see there is an obvious pattern emerging from the finds of these first few layers of the guardhouse floor.

The finds seem to be concentrated in certain areas: these being the southern and western edges with a clear lack in finds from the centre and northern edge. This can be explained by looking at the guardhouse more closely. The entrance will have been by the threshold stone as shown and unfortunately the edges of the floor have been truncated by Thomas Mays Trenches which he dug in his 1907 excavation (Buxton and Howard- Davis 2000). Therefore we can assume the guardhouse floor was larger than we discovered. Therefore the current edges of the floor are several centimetres away from the actual edge, whereas some edges may well have been close to their original position. This would explain the pattern showing as normally in a room waste gets confined to the corners, with the centre being reasonably clean as this will be where the main activity takes place. Placement of furniture could also impact the loss and placement of objects. The finds themselves are extremely interesting as one of the main type recovered was animal bone. There was a heavy concentration of animal bone found in the southern side of the guardhouse. We are still awaiting zooarchaeological analysis; however, on first look most seem to be cow or pig. Moreover, two sizeable bones were found in situ; a pelvis and a scapula (shown in figure 2).

The reason for the high concentration of bones in the southern section of this space could be due to how the space was used. For example, the southern area could be where food was consumed therefore small pieces of bone lying around would be normal. The longer bones are more difficult to explain our working theory is that long bones were placed to even out the floor surface and make it more substantial before another layer of clay was added, this has been seen before however needs investigating next year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shown above are the pottery finds from the excavation (Figure 3). Again, a similar pattern is emerging with a concentration again in the southern section of the guardhouse. But also some scattered along the eastern edge. Most of these were small fragments with the exception being a base of a pot found with a maker’s mark, discovered in last year’s excavations in the eastern section of the guardhouse and excavated this year much to the delight of the students. The fact that small fragments were found lead us to the conclusion that these were deposited randomly from perhaps several smashed or chipped vessels.

 

 

Figure 4 demonstrates all of the material associated with metal working. The dark purple spots representing metal slag which is a bi product of metal working and the light purple represents nails which are associated with building. There is a cluster of slag towards the eastern section which could lead us to believe that metalworking was taking place in this area at one time or another. Perhaps once this space wasn’t being used as a guard house it was repurposed for metal working which isn’t unheard, similar evidence was found for a guardhouse at Birdoswald (Biggins et al 1999).

It will be interesting to see if these same patterns continue to show in the 2018 excavations as the guardhouse when the final floor layers are removed. The finds will continued to be plotted so it will be possible to analyse the patterns in the lab once the excavations have been completed.

 

References:

Biggins, J. A., Taylor, D. J. A., Coxon, B., Esselmont, B., Frank, A., Hudson, C., McCloy, P., Montgomery, E., and Robinson, J. 1999. A Survey of the Roman Fort and Settlement at Birdoswald, Cumbria. Britannia 30. 91-110.

Buxton, K. and Howard-Davis, C. 2000. Bremetenacum. Lancaster: Lancaster Imprints.