Great Britain -- Antiquities, Roman; Romans -- Great Britain
(iii) _Traprain Law._ Very interesting, too, are the 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).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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