Alauna (Maryport)

Last updated

Alauna
Cumbria, England
Senhouse Museum, Maryport - geograph.org.uk - 40522.jpg
Senhouse Roman Museum, with its replica Roman watch-tower in the background.
Location map United Kingdom Allerdale.svg
Red pog.svg
Alauna
Location in Allerdale, Cumbria
Cumbria UK location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Alauna
Location in Cumbria, England
Coordinates 54°43′15″N3°29′38″W / 54.720936°N 3.493978°W / 54.720936; -3.493978
Grid reference NY03863724

Alauna was a castrum or fort in the Roman province of Britannia. It occupied a coastal site just north of the town of Maryport in the English county of Cumbria (formerly part of Cumberland).

Contents

It was linked by a Roman road to the Roman fort and settlement at Derventio (Papcastle) to the southeast, and thence by another road northeast to the regional hub of Luguvalium (Carlisle).

In 2015 "Maryport's Mystery Monuments" was Research Project of the Year in the British Archaeology Awards.

Name

It has been established "beyond reasonable doubt" that the Roman name for Maryport was Alauna. [1] Alauna is a river name and the Roman fort stands on a hill north of the River Ellen. [2] The name Alauna appears securely just once – in the Ravenna Cosmography . [1] The Antonine Itinerary mentions a fort called Alone on the road from Ravenglass to Whitchurch but this cannot be Maryport, but is either a fort at Watercrook (on the river Kent near Kendal) or one at Low Borrowbridge (on the River Lune near Tebay). [1] The Notitia Dignitatum lists a fort called Alione, garrisoned by the Cohors III Nerviorum, which has been equated with both Alauna and Alone by different scholars. [1]

Character

The fort was established during the reign of the emperor Hadrian, around AD 122 [3] as a command and supply base for the coastal defences of Hadrian's Wall at its western extremity. There are substantial remains of the Roman fort, which was one of a series along the Cumbrian coast intended to prevent Hadrian's Wall being outflanked by crossing the Solway Firth. Geo-magnetic surveys have revealed a large Roman town surrounding the fort. An archaeological dig discovered evidence of a second, earlier, larger fort next to, and partially under the present remains.

Recent excavations have shown that a nearby enclosure ditch related to a late Iron Age and Romano-British farmstead may even have supplied the fort with food, possibly in exchange for goods like pottery. [4]

Geophysical survey

TimeScape Surveys (Biggins & Taylor), supported by a grant from the Maryport Heritage Trust, conducted a magnetometry geophysical survey of the fort and its vicus (civilian settlement). Some targeted areas of resistivity survey were completed. The survey was conducted between May 2000 and September 2003 on land at Camp Farm, Maryport. Covering 72.5 hectares (170 acres), it is the largest geophysical survey carried out on the northern Roman frontier.

The survey revealed multi-period activity, together with the possible location of a Roman port or causeway. The fort had been robbed of stone to construct other buildings in the locality. The vicus was well-preserved and had a substantial road leading to the suspected Roman entrepôt. The field system surrounding the vicus was extensive and showed small 'market garden' plots, some containing buildings. The survey also detected a suspected Iron Age enclosure and elements of medieval buildings.

Museum and artefacts

The Roman fort site was owned from the 16th century by generations of the Senhouse family. The main building on the site was constructed as a naval artillery drill hall in 1885; it was converted into a museum (the Senhouse Roman Museum) in 1990. [5] The Senhouse family's collections are now housed in the museum. The numerous Roman artefacts include altars. The site has yielded more altars than any other in Britain, and the finds have been made over a long period of time, from Tudor times to the present century.

Altars

The altars are made of local sandstone. They were erected for ceremonies which appear to have taken place annually. The inscriptions give information about the fort and its inhabitants. One of the best known, now in the British Museum, has an inscription dedicated by Gaius Cornelius Peregrinus, a decurion (town councillor) from Saldae (present-day Bejaia in Algeria), who was tribunus (military commander) of the auxiliary garrison. [6]

Excavations beginning in 2011 have thrown more light on the altars. The archaeologists included Ian Haynes of Newcastle University and Tony Wilmott (who won the Archaeologist of the Year award in 2012). [7]

Where the altars originally stood is not known, but they were designed to stand in rows. They were possibly aligned in relation to a temple, and excavations have examined evidence for two temples. [8]

The 2011 excavation season revisited a site where 17 altars were found in pits in 1870. The circumstances of the altars' deposition have been reinterpreted and it is accepted that they were re-used in the foundations of a late-Roman building. [9] This suggests that religious beliefs at Alauna changed during the period of Roman occupation. [7]

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 Jarrett, Michael (1976). Maryport, Cumbria: a Roman fort and its garrison. T. Wilson. pp. 15–16.
  2. Garlick, Tom (1976). Romans in the Lake Counties. Dalesman. p. 40.
  3. "Maryport (Alauna) Roman Fort".
  4. Kirby, Magnus; Walker, Jamie (14 November 2023). "The Excavation of a Romano-British Site at Netherhall Road, Maryport". Internet Archaeology (61). doi:10.11141/ia.61.7. ISSN   1363-5387.
  5. "About Senhouse Roman Museum". Senhouse Roman Museum. Retrieved 28 January 2018.
  6. Altar. British Museum. Retrieved July 10, 2014
  7. 1 2 "Maryport's mystery monuments". Current Archaeology . 2014. Retrieved 14 August 2015.
  8. Roman Maryport - Roman Temples Project Archived 2015-09-06 at the Wayback Machine
  9. Robson, Ian. "I'm Digging the Dirt to Unearth the Roman Past". Sunday Sun - Newcastle-upon-Tyne. ncjMedia Ltd. 2012.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vindolanda</span> Roman fort in Northern England

Vindolanda was a Roman auxiliary fort (castrum) just south of Hadrian's Wall in northern England, which it pre-dated. Archaeological excavations of the site show it was under Roman occupation from roughly 85 AD to 370 AD. Located near the modern village of Bardon Mill in Northumberland, it guarded the Stanegate, the Roman road from the River Tyne to the Solway Firth. It is noted for the Vindolanda tablets, a set of wooden leaf-tablets that were, at the time of their discovery, the oldest surviving handwritten documents in Britain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maryport</span> Town in Cumbria, England

Maryport is a town and civil parish in Cumbria, England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Banna (Birdoswald)</span> Roman archelogical site in Cumbria, England

Birdoswald Roman Fort was known as Banna in Roman times, reflecting the geography of the site on a triangular spur of land bounded by cliffs to the south and east commanding a broad meander of the River Irthing in Cumbria below.

Alauna is the feminine form of the Gaulish god Alaunus or (possibly) an unrelated Celtic river goddess in her own right.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bowness-on-Solway</span> Human settlement in England

Bowness-on-Solway is a village in Cumbria, England. It is situated to the west of Carlisle on the southern side of the Solway Firth estuary separating England and Scotland. The civil parish had a population of 1,126 at the 2011 census. The western end of Hadrian's Wall is a notable tourist destination, though the Wall itself is no longer to be seen here above ground. The west end of the Hadrian's Wall Path is marked by a pavilion on the small coastal cliff at Bowness. The village is part of the Solway Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ambleside Roman Fort</span> Roman fort in Cumbria, United Kingdom

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vinovia</span> Roman fort in County Durham, England

Vinovia or Vinovium was a Roman fort and settlement situated just over 1 mile (1.6 km) to the north of the town of Bishop Auckland on the banks of the River Wear in County Durham, England. The fort was the site of a hamlet until the late Middle Ages, but the modern-day village of Binchester is about 2 miles (3 km) to the east, near Spennymoor. The ruins are now known as the Binchester Roman Fort.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Condercum</span> Roman fort in England

Condercum was a Roman fort on the site of the modern-day Condercum Estate in Benwell, a suburb of Newcastle upon Tyne, England. It was the third fort on Hadrian's Wall, after Segedunum (Wallsend) and Pons Aelius (Newcastle), and was situated on a hilltop 2 miles (3 km) to the west of the city.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aballava</span> Roman fort in Cumbria, England

Aballava or Aballaba was a Roman fort on Hadrian's Wall, between Petriana (Stanwix) to the east and Coggabata (Drumburgh) to the west. It is about one and a half miles south of the Solway Firth, and its purpose was to guard the south end of two important Solway fords, the Peat Wath and the Sandwath, which were also to become favourite routes for medieval border raiders.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coggabata</span> Roman fort in Cumbria, England

Coggabata, or Congavata / Concavata, was a Roman fort on Hadrian's Wall, between Aballava to the east and Mais (Bowness-on-Solway) to the west. It was built on a hill commanding views over the flatter land to the east and west and to the shore of the Solway Firth to the north. Its purpose was to guard the southern end of two important Solway fords, the Stonewath and the Sandwath.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mais (Bowness)</span> Roman fort in Cumbria, England

Maia, or Mais, in Cumbria, England was a Roman fort on Hadrian's Wall, and was the last fort at the western end of the Wall, overlooking the Solway Firth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hadrian's Wall</span> Defensive fortification in Roman Britain

Hadrian's Wall, also known as the Roman Wall, Picts' Wall, or Vallum Aelium in Latin, is a former defensive fortification of the Roman province of Britannia, begun in AD 122 in the reign of the Emperor Hadrian. Running from Wallsend on the River Tyne in the east to Bowness-on-Solway in the west of what is now northern England, it was a stone wall with large ditches in front of it and behind it that crossed the whole width of the island. Soldiers were garrisoned along the line of the wall in large forts, smaller milecastles, and intervening turrets. In addition to the wall's defensive military role, its gates may have been customs posts.

Whitley Castle (Epiacum) is a large, unusually shaped Roman fort north-west of the town of Alston, Cumbria, England. The castrum, which was first built by the Roman Army early in the 2nd century AD, was partly demolished and rebuilt around 200 AD. It appears to have been sited to protect lead mining in the area as well as to support the border defences of Hadrian's Wall.

David John Breeze, OBE, FSA, FRSE, HonFSAScot, Hon MIFA is a British archaeologist, teacher and scholar of Hadrian's Wall, the Antonine Wall and the Roman army. He studied under Eric Birley and is a member of the so-called "Durham School" of archaeology. He was a close friend and colleague of the late Dr Brian Dobson.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Milefortlet 23</span>

Milefortlet 23 (Sea Brows) was a Milefortlet of the Roman Cumbrian Coast defences. These milefortlets and intervening stone watchtowers extended from the western end of Hadrian's Wall, along the Cumbrian coast and were linked by a wooden palisade. They were contemporary with defensive structures on Hadrian's Wall. There is nothing to see on the ground, but Milefortlet 23 has been located and surveyed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Milefortlet 25</span>

Milefortlet 25 was a Milefortlet of the Roman Cumbrian Coast defences. These milefortlets and intervening stone watchtowers extended from the western end of Hadrian's Wall, along the Cumbrian coast and were linked by a wooden palisade. They were contemporary with defensive structures on Hadrian's Wall. Milefortlet 25 is the southernmost known of the fortlets of the Cumberland coast, but there is nothing to see on the ground, as Milefortlet 25 lies in an industrial area of Maryport.

Derventio was a Roman settlement at Papcastle on the river Derwent near Cockermouth, Cumbria, England. It was the site of a Roman fort, which was originally built in timber and rebuilt in stone. There was also a civilian settlement (vicus). It is sometimes called Derventio Carvetiorum by modern writers to distinguish it from other places named Derventio, but there is no evidence of that extended name being used in the Roman period.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alavana</span>

Alavana was a name tentatively applied to the ruins of a Roman fort at Watercrook about 2 mi (3.2 km) south of Kendal in Cumbria, for which the Roman name Medibogdo is a perfect fit to its river-bend position. The fort at Watercrook was erected around AD 90, originally in timber but then rebuilt in stone around the year 130 during the reign of Hadrian. The fort was abandoned for about 20 years during the Antonine occupation of Scotland. It was refurbished under Marcus Aurelius and occupied until around 270, when its military units departed. Its remains are now largely buried beneath a local farm, while excavated artifacts are displayed at the Kendal Museum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roman Cumbria</span> Area that used to lay on the north-west frontier of Roman Britain and the Roman Empire itself

Roman Cumbria was an area that lay on the north-west frontier of Roman Britain, and, indeed, of the Roman Empire itself.. Interest in the Roman occupation of the region lies in this frontier aspect: why did the Romans choose to occupy the north-west of England; why build a solid barrier in the north of the region ; why was the region so heavily militarised; to what extent were the native inhabitants "Romanised" compared to their compatriots in southern England?

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Over Burrow Roman Fort</span> Roman fort in Burrow-with-Burrow, Lancaster, England

Over Burrow Roman Fort is the modern name given to a former Roman fort at Over Burrow, Lancashire in North West England. Today it is the site of the 18th-century country house Burrow Hall. The first castra is thought to have been founded in the first century AD within the Roman province of Britannia.

References

Further reading