Roman Britain in 1914 | Page 3

preliminary results
secured by Mr. A. O. Curie on Traprain Law. This is an isolated hill in
Haddingtonshire, some twenty miles east of Edinburgh, on the
Whittingehame estate of Mr. Arthur Balfour. Legends cluster round
it--of varying antiquity. It itself shows two distinct lines of fortification,
one probably much older than the other, enclosing some 60 acres. The

area excavated in 1914 was a tiny piece, about 30 yards square; the
results were most promising. Five levels of stratification could be
distinguished. The lowest and earliest yielded small objects of native
work and Roman potsherds of the late first century: higher up, Roman
coins and pottery of the second century appeared, and in the top level,
Roman potsherds assigned to the fourth century. One Roman potsherd,
from a second-century level, bore three Roman letters IRI, the meaning
of which is likely to remain obscure. As the inscribed surface came
from the inside of an urn, the writing must have been done after the pot
was broken, and presumably on the hill itself. Among the native finds
were stone and clay moulds for casting metal objects. The site, on a
whole, seems to be native rather than Roman; it may be our first clue to
the character of native oppida in northern Britain under Roman rule; its
excavation is eminently worth pursuing.
(iv) Northumberland, Hadrian's Wall. On Hadrian's Wall no
excavations have been carried out. But at Chesterholm two inscribed
altars were found in the summer. One was dedicated to Juppiter
Optimus Maximus; the rest of the lettering was illegible. The other,
dedicated to Vulcan on behalf of the Divinity of the Imperial House by
the people of the locality, possesses much interest. The dedicators
describe themselves as vicani Vindolandenses, and thus give proof that
the civilians living outside the fort at Chesterholm formed a vicus or
something that could plausibly be described as such; further, they teach
the proper name of the place, which we have been wont to call
Vindolana. See further below, p. 31.
North of the Wall, at Featherwood near High Rochester (the fort
Bremenium) an altar has been found, dedicated to Victory (see p. 30).
(v) Corbridge. The exploration of Corbridge was carried through its
ninth season by Mr. R. H. Forster. As in 1913, the results were
somewhat scanty. The area examined, which lay on the north-east of
the site, adjacent to the areas examined in 1910 and 1913, seems, like
them, to have been thinly occupied in Roman times; at any rate the
structures actually unearthed consisted only of a roughly built
foundation (25 feet diam.) of uncertain use, which there is no reason to

call a temple, some other even more indeterminate foundations, and
two bits of road. More interest may attach to three ditches (one for
sewage) and the clay base of a rampart, which belong in some way to
the northern defences of the place in various times. The full meaning of
these will, however, not be discernible till complete plans are available
and probably not till further excavations have been made; Mr. Forster
inclines to explain parts of them as ditches of a fort held in the age of
Trajan, about A.D. 90-110. Several small finds merit note. An inscribed
tile seems to have served as a writing lesson or rather, perhaps, as a
reading lesson: see below, p. 32. The Samian pottery included a very
few pieces of '29', a good deal of early '37', which most archaeologists
would ascribe to the late first or the opening second century, and some
other pieces which perhaps belong to a rather later part of the same
century. The coins cover much the same period; few are later than
Hadrian. Among them was a hoard of 32 denarii and 12 copper of
which Mr. Craster has made the following list:--
Silver: 2 Republican, 1 Julius Caesar, 1 Mark Antony, 1 Nero, 1 Galba,
3 Vitellius, 13 Vespasian, 3 Titus, 6 Domitian, 1 unidentified.
Copper: 3 Vespasian, 1 Titus, 2 Domitian, 3 Nerva, 1 Trajan, 2
unidentified.
The latest coin was the copper of Trajan--a dupondius or Second Brass
of A.D. 98. All the coins had been corroded into a single mass,
apparently by the burning of a wooden box in which they have been
kept; this burning must have occurred about A.D. 98-100. Among the
bronze objects found during the year was a dragonesque enamelled
brooch.
(vi) In Upper Weardale (co. Durham) a peat-bog has given up two
bronze paterae or skillets, bearing the stamp of the Italian
bronze-worker Cipius Polybius, and an uninscribed bronze ladle. See
below, p. 33.
(vii) Near Appleby, at Hangingshaw farm, Mr. P. Ross has come upon
a Roman inscription which proves to be a milestone of the Emperor
Philip (A.D. 244-6) first found in 1694 and since lost