Category: Ancient

Roman arm guard restored from 100 fragments

Ancient, Museums

A brass Roman arm guard that was found in more than a hundred pieces has been reconstructed by conservators at National Museums Scotland in Edinburgh. It is one of only three Roman lorica segmentata (banded armor) arm guards known to exist today and it is by far the most complete of the three. The pieces of the arm guard were discovered in 1906 at the Roman outpost fort of Trimontium near Melrose in the Scottish Borders. They date to the 2nd century and were found in excellent condition, with pieces of the leather laces still embedded in the holes of at the ends of some of the plates.

The fragments have been in National Museums Scotland’s collection for over a century. The upper section has been on display in the National Museum of Scotland for 25 years, with the lower section loaned to the Trimontium Museum and dozens of fragments stored at the National Museums Collection Centre. They have now been brought together and assembled for the first time, offering a glimpse into the life of a legionary in Roman Scotland. Following the exhibition at the British Museum, the arm guard will go on permanent display at the National Museum of Scotland. […]

The arm guard stretches down from the shoulder and ends in a thin square of metal that would have protected the wearer’s hand, a design that may have been inspired by the equipment worn by gladiators fighting in the arena. Experts initially believed it would have been body armour, and it was later thought to be a thigh guard for a cavalryman. It is only in recent years that its true function has been understood.

First constructed in the 80s A.D., Trimontium was an enormous legionary fort (49 acres in area) that was at various times an advance outpost into Scotland, a civilian and military settlement 60 miles north of Hadrian’s Wall, a supply stop behind the front lines of the Antonine Wall, and lastly a settlement of dwindling civilian and military population until its ultimate abandonment in the late 2nd century.

The site was rediscovered by accident during railroad construction in the 1840s. The first professional excavations took place between 1905 and 1910 under the leadership of solicitor and archaeologist Dr. James Curle. Curle’s excavations unearthed an unprecedented number and variety of Roman armature, the largest collection of Roman military objects ever discovered in Britain. Most of this armature was found in the Pincipia, the administrative headquarters of the fort, where a workshop for equipment repairs was located. When the fort was abandoned in 180, the arms and armature still awaiting repair in the workshop were left behind.

Curle mentions the arm guard fragments (and his misunderstanding of them as shoulder and chest protection) in his seminal 1911 publication of the finds, Newstead, A Frontier Post and its People.

Remains of another type of scale armour were discovered in the floor of the chamber situated at the north-west corner of the Principia. Unfortunately, here also the pieces were too small to enable the cuirass of which they had formed part to be reconstructed. Altogether there were more than one hundred fragments (Plate XXIII.). These consisted for the most part of thin plates of brass from one inch to one inch and three-sixteenths in width, slightly curved, and having a thickness of two mm. The longest piece was about three and a half inches in length. In several instances it was clear that the fragment had formed the extreme end of the band to which it belonged. In such cases it was noted that the outer margin formed an acute angle with the lower edge, but that the sharp corner was blunted in the same manner as were the corresponding parts of heavier iron bands from Carnuntum. On the concave side of the bands near the upper edge are rivets. Upon several of these there are still to be seen adhering pieces of the leather backing to which they have been attached. At the end of each band near the edge a round hole has been bored; as none of these holes were found with rivets in them, it is possible that they were used for the insertion of a cord to draw the coat together. It is quite evident from the oxydisation of the metal that when the armour was left where it was ultimately discovered, the bands were overlapping. The curve of some of the pieces suggests that they were intended to protect the shoulders and arms. Others may well have covered the body. About half a dozen pieces, the largest of which measures four inches by three and seven-sixteenths inches, may have belonged to the breastplate.

Most legionary armor was made of iron. The brass arm guard would have shone like gold when new, so this must have belonged to an officer of high rank rather than an infantry grunt. While the shiny gold finish has oxidized to green now, the patina proved useful to conservators. Patterns of corrosion helped convey how the plates were connected, the laces tied and the padding attached.

The reconstructed arm guard goes on display at the British Museum’s Legion: Life in the Roman Army exhibition on February 1st. The show will run through June 23rd.

Rusty Roman-era iron hoard found in Poland

Ancient

A hoard of iron weapons has been discovered in the state forest outside Hrubieszów, Poland, near the border with Ukraine. Forester Mateusz Filipowicz and some friends came across the iron objects earlier this month. In marshy area that had been disturbed by heavy forestry machinery and animal activity, they saw a rusty, mud-covered object they could not identify. They dug a small hole to remove the object and found more than a dozen additional iron objects just as filthy and heavily corroded.

Because the artifacts were caked in sand, mud and corrosion materials, they couldn’t tell what the objects were at first glance. They took the group to a garage to clean them and hopefully determine what they might be. They expected they’d found some random twisted metal from World War II, but as soon they rinsed them off, they realized they were much older archaeological materials and immediately reported the objects and find site to the director of the Museum of the Priest Stanisław Staszic in Hlubieszów.

Two hours later, they dropped off the artifacts at the museum in a mushroom basket. Museum director Bartłomiej Bartecki examined the contents of the basket and determined it contained nine iron spearheads, two iron battle axes, one blade axe, one iron shield holder and two iron points or chisels. It had to have been collected and deliberately deposited in antiquity, likely during the Roman imperial period.

No assemblage like this has ever been found in the Hrubieszów region before. Iron weapons have only been found in the graves of Germanic and Vandal peoples, and those were individual pieces interred as grave goods. The find site shows no evidence of a burial, no bones, no pottery, only weapons. This means someone brought an organic container full of iron weapon pieces to the ancient marsh and deposited them there. The container survived long enough to keep them together in a single group before decomposing.

It’s possible that the iron hoard was deposited by Goths. Unlike the other peoples who inhabited the area in antiquity, the Goths did not bury iron weapons and tools in graves, even though they certainly used them just like everyone else. If they were “retiring” them by depositing them in swamps, that would explain the paucity of iron at Gothic sites in Poland.

The objects are currently undergoing conservation at the Museum of the Priest Stanisław Staszic to reveal their true visages under all the rust and crust. Archaeologists will return to the find site for a follow-up excavation in the spring.

Lost 4,000-year-old tomb rediscovered in Ireland

Ancient, Modern(ish)

A local folklorist has discovered the remnants of a Bronze Age tomb that was believed to have been destroyed in the mid-19th century. The megalithic structure known as Altóir na Gréine (the altar of the sun) was built on top of a hill outside the village of Ballyferriter, County Kerry, about 4,000 years ago. It was a wedge tomb, a funerary monument containing the cinerary remains of a family or community group but may also have been used for other ceremonial purposes. This style of tomb is typically oriented to the west or southwest and may have had a cosmological connection to the setting sun, hence its traditional appellation.

It was still intact in 1838 when it was visited as a local attraction by Victorian writer and world traveler Lady Georgiana Chatterton. She recounted her visit, complete with a sketch of the “sun altar,” in her best-selling travel memoir Rambles in the South of Ireland.

On the top of the hill were the remains of a very curious piece of antiquity, once an altar, supposed to have been used for offering sacrifices to the sun. We heartily wished we could have had an opportunity of telling the sun, before hand, of our intention of visiting his altar; for a more thick, penetrating rain I think never was experiences, than fell to our lot while poking over the remains of the old stones, and taking the sketch which is here given.

Inspired by Lady Chatterton’s record of her ramble, Kerry antiquarian Richard Hitchcock visited the hill site in 1852 seeking what he called the cromleac (literally “bent stone” meaning a megalithic tomb with two standing stones topped by a capstone) that she had sketched.

I regret to say that this cromleac, or, as Lady Chatterton calls it, “sun altar,” does not now exist, the stones which composed it having been broken and carried away for building purposes, as if there were no others in the neighbourhood! It is, however, fortunate that we have even a small engraving of the monument preserved to us.

That last line proved prescient. The location of the lost tomb disappeared from collective memory and nobody had ever noted its coordinates when it was still apparent on the landscape. It was Lady Chatterton’s sketch that bore mute witness to its presence 185 years later when folklorist Billy Mag Fhloinn came across megalithic stones on a tomb-mapping project on the Dingle peninsula run by Sacred Heart University. He was very familiar with the drawing and specifically had it in mind when he climbed the hill looking for the long-lost Altóir na Gréine and filmed the stones he saw there.

When converting the video into a 3D scan he noticed that a stone in the undergrowth resembled one from Lady Chatterton’s Victorian-era sketch.

He sent the material to the National Monuments Service in Dublin, which dispatched archaeologist Caimin O’Brien, who confirmed it belonged to a so-called wedge tomb dating from the early bronze age between 2500BC and 2000 BC.

There is a capstone and several large upright stones called orthostats, comprising about a quarter of the original tomb, Mag Fhloinn said on Thursday. “People had assumed it was all destroyed.”

Roman dodecahedron found in Lincolnshire

Ancient

An unusually large and fine example of the mysterious Roman dodecahedron has been unearthed in a community dig at Norton Disney in Lincolnshire. Only about 130 of these hollow 12-sided copper alloy objects have been found in the northern and western provinces of the Roman Empire. This is only the 33rd example found in England. None have been found in Rome, and there are no references to them in the ancient sources, inscriptions, frescoes, mosaics or any other medium to explain their purpose or function.

The dodecahedron was discovered last summer in an excavation at Potter Hill. It was in a pit, perhaps a quarry pit, filled with Roman pottery fragments and demolition rubble. It weighs 250 grams, is 8 cm (3.1 inches) wide, significantly larger than average, and 100% complete. As rare as these objects are, even more rare is to discover them in situ where they were originally buried in an organized archaeological dig. Most of them are in private collections and museums (or in a looter stash) and all information about their original contexts is lost.

A Roman villa was discovered less than a half mile away from Potter Hill in 1933. It was near the Fosse Way, a major Roman road that connected Exeter to Lincoln. The remains of the villa, entirely underground today, are on the National Heritage List. (Unfortunately, the villa is also on Historic England’s “Heritage At Risk” register, not because of human interference, but due to a community of badgers, who are themselves protected, having dug a sett amidst the ruins.) It’s possible the pit where the dodecahedron was found was associated with the villa or another high-status building.

There are many theories about what the Gallo-Roman dodecahedra were used for — candle holders, surveyor’s tools, wool crafts — but no consistent wear patterns attest to any such practical usage. X-ray fluorescence analysis of the Norton Disney dodecahedron found it is 67% copper, 7% tin and 26% lead. That is a high proportion of lead, a soft and malleable metal very prone to squishing, for a tool. They are all different sizes, ranging from golf ball to baseball, and have holes of different sizes in each of the 12 hexagonal sides. The overall design is consistent, however, with ball-shaped studs at each corner of the sides. In the end, the old fallback of “ritual purpose” seems to be the likeliest possibility.

The dodecahedron went on display at the National Civil War Centre in Newark-on-Trent on January 3rd and is already drawing crowds. It was also featured on the January 9th episode of the long-lived BBC series Digging for Britain. The episode can be viewed here but only from UK IP addresses.

The Norton Disney History and Archaeology Group is raising funds for a follow-up excavation of the find site this summer. The team was not able to finish their excavations of trenches three and four, so they need to go back to pick up where they left off. They have a very modest of goal of £1,000 and have raised £155 of it so far. To contribute to their efforts, donate here.

You can get a great view of its unusual size and excellent condition in this short video:

Remains of two new Doric temples found at Paestum

Ancient

The remains of two new temples in Doric style have been discovered in the ancient Greek colony of Poseidonia (renamed Paestum by the Romans when they conquered it in 273 B.C.) in southern Italy. Only the base of one dating to the 5th century B.C. remains intact. The remains of the older temple were incorporated into it.

The temples were discovered unexpectedly during an excavation campaign on the western side of the city near the ancient walls. The goal was to document the stratigraphy of the area, and archaeologists had no inkling there were temple remains to be found. The first traces of the first temple were encountered in June 2019, with a thorough investigation beginning in September 2022. That temple dates to the first decades of the 5th century B.C. The parts of it that are preserved today are the foundation of the columns (the stylobate) and the steps (crepidoma). It measures 38 by 25 feet and its peristatis (the four sides of columns surrounding the cella, the inner chamber space where the image of the deity was venerated) had six columns on the long sides and four on the short. These dimensions and architectural features are unique for a Doric temple.

The excavation is ongoing now, and just a few weeks ago, archaeologists found the remains of an even older temple. Beneath the peristasis are 14 fragmentary column capitals and other assorted architectural materials that were reused in the construction of the 5th century B.C. temple. They are about the same size as the columns of the small temple would have been, but of a different type comparable to the Doric capitals in the Temple of Hera, the oldest of Paestum’s temples. That means a temple from the 6th century B.C. precedes the one unearthed in 2022. It was replaced, likely after a collapse, and its usable pieces recycled into the new sacred structure.

This discovery sheds new light on the early timeline of the site and of the city’s layout. The excavation found evidence that the internal walls of the city had collapsed, hitting the 5th century temple and damaging part of it. A road was found underneath the collapsed wall, indicating that in the 6th century B.C. when the earliest of the two small temples was built, the city did not yet have defensive walls.

During a period of significant growth of the polis, the colonists of Poseidonia built a sanctuary in a strategic location. It protected the urban space and was directly visible from the sea. The importance of this sacred space is confirmed by its complex building phases, which saw the construction of two Doric temples. Its uninterrupted use, spanning over half a millennium, marks a fundamental continuity of worship through the Greco-Lucanian and Roman eras.