Coventina was a Romano-British goddess of wells and springs. She is known from multiple inscriptions at one site in Northumberland, England, an area surrounding a wellspring near Carrawburgh on Hadrian's Wall. It is possible that other inscriptions, two from Hispania and one from Narbonensis, refer to Coventina, but this is disputed. [1]
Dedications to Coventina and votive deposits were found in a walled area which had been built to contain the outflow from a spring now called "Coventina's Well". The well and the walled area surrounding it are near the Roman fort and settlement on Hadrian's Wall, now known as Carrawburgh, which was called "Brocoliti" in the Ravenna Cosmography), [2] from the 7th century but based on earlier sources, and "Procolitia" in the 5th century document Notitia Dignitatum. The remains of a Roman Mithraeum and Nymphaeum are also found near the site.
The well itself was a spring in a rectangular basin 2.6m x 2.4m in the centre of a walled enclosure 11.6m x 12.2m within a wall 0.9m thick. [3] The contents of the well included 13,487 coins from Mark Anthony to Gratian, a relief of three water nymphs, the head of a male statue, two dedication slabs to the goddess Coventina, ten altars to Coventina and Minerva, two clay incense burners, and a wide range of votive objects. [3]
The site near Coventina's Well was excavated by British archaeologist John Clayton in 1876. [3] [4] The date of the wall at Coventina's Well is uncertain, but some have theorized that it was built sometime after the completion of the Roman fort (dated between the years 128 and 133).[ citation needed ] Since Hadrian's Wall does not deviate to avoid the well, this may suggest that the boundary wall around the well was built some time after in order to control the flow of water in a marshy area. [1]
Evidence from coin hoards and stones which covered them and those also blocking the well suggest a fairly abrupt end around 388, perhaps due to events linked to anti-pagan edicts of Theodosius I.
Excavation of the site revealed several inscribed altars, some with depictions of Coventina in typical Roman nymph form - reclining, partially clothed and associated with water. On one, Coventina is either depicted in triple form or with two attendants.
At least ten inscriptions to Coventina are recorded from Carrawburgh. Several stone altars contained dedications to Coventina as did two pottery incense burners.
An example of an inscription [5] from the site reads:
“To the Goddess Coventina, Titus D[unclear] Cosconianus, Prefectus of the First Cohort of Batavians, freely and deservedly (dedicated this stone).”
Three altars dedicated to Mithras were placed there by prefects of the military garrison.[ citation needed ]
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.
The Matres and Matronae were female deities venerated in Northwestern Europe, of whom relics are found dating from the first to the fifth century AD. They are depicted on votive offerings and altars that bear images of goddesses, depicted almost entirely in groups of three, that feature inscriptions and were venerated in regions of Germania, Eastern Gaul, and Northern Italy that were occupied by the Roman army from the first to the fifth century.
In Romano-British culture and Germanic polytheism, the Alaisiagae were a quartet of Celtic and Germanic goddesses deifying victory.
Veteris was a Celtic god attested from many inscriptions in Roman Britain. The dedicants were usually private individuals and were exclusively male. During the 3rd Century AD the cult was particularly popular among the ranks of the Roman army.
Below are notable events in archaeology that occurred in 1876.
Magnis or Magna was a Roman fort on Hadrian's Wall in northern Britain. Its ruins are now known as Carvoran Roman Fort and are located near Carvoran, Northumberland, in northern England. It is thought to have been sited with reference to the Stanegate Roman road, before the building of Hadrian's Wall, to which it is not physically attached. In fact the Vallum ditch unusually goes north of the fort, separating it from the Wall.
Ardotalia is a Roman fort in Gamesley, near Glossop in Derbyshire, England.
Cilurnum or Cilurvum was a fort on Hadrian's Wall mentioned in the Notitia Dignitatum. It is now identified with the fort found at Chesters near the village of Walwick, Northumberland, England. It was built in 123 AD, just after the wall's completion.
Pons Aelius, or Newcastle Roman Fort, was an auxiliary castra and small Roman settlement on Hadrian's Wall in the Roman province of Britannia Inferior, situated on the north bank of the River Tyne close to the centre of present-day Newcastle upon Tyne, and occupied between the 2nd and 4th centuries AD.
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.
The Amphiareion of Oropos, situated in the hills 6 km southeast of the fortified port of Oropos, was a sanctuary dedicated in the late 5th century BCE to the hero Amphiaraos, where pilgrims went to seek oracular responses and healing. It became particularly successful during the 4th century BCE, to judge from the intensive building at the site. The hero Amphiaraos was a descendant of the seer Melampos and initially refused to participate in the attack on Thebes because he could foresee that it would be a disaster. In some versions of the myth, the earth opens and swallows the chariot of Amphiaraos, transforming him into a chthonic hero. Today the site is found east of the modern town Markopoulo Oropou in the Oropos municipality of Attica, Greece.
Carrawburgh is a settlement in Northumberland. In Roman times, it was the site of a 3+1⁄2-acre (1.5 ha) auxiliary fort on Hadrian's Wall called Brocolitia, Procolita, or Brocolita. This name is probably based on the Celtic name for the place, and one possible translation put forward is 'badger holes'. The fort there was a mile or so west of the Wall's northernmost point at Limestone Corner, and just over a mile west of the nearest milecastle, Milecastle 30. The fort either used the Wall itself as its northern rampart, or was built parallel to it but detached. It certainly postdates both the Wall and the vallum.
The Pitsa panels or Pitsa tablets are a group of painted wooden tablets found near Pitsa, Corinthia (Greece). They are the earliest surviving examples of Greek panel painting.
Longovicium was an auxiliary fort located on Roman Dere Street, in the Roman province of Britannia Inferior. It is located just southwest of Lanchester in the English county of Durham, roughly 8 miles (13 km) to the west of the city of Durham and 5 miles (8 km) from Consett.
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.
Bewcastle Roman Fort was built to the north of Hadrian's Wall as an outpost fort possibly intended for scouting and intelligence. The remains of the fort are situated at the village of Bewcastle, Cumbria, 7 miles (11 km) to the north of the Roman fort at Birdoswald, on Hadrian's Wall.
Milecastle 19 (Matfen Piers) was a milecastle of the Roman Hadrian's Wall. Sited just to the east of the hamlet of Matfen Piers, the milecastle is today covered by the B6318 Military Road. The milecastle is notable for the discovery of an altar by Eric Birley in the 1930s. An inscription on the altar is one of the few dedications to a mother goddess found in Roman Britain, and was made by members of the First Cohort of Varduli from northern Spain. The presence of the Vardulians at this milecastle has led to debate amongst archaeologists over the origins of troops used to garrison the wall. A smaller altar was found at one of the two associated turrets.
A votive offering or votive deposit is one or more objects displayed or deposited, without the intention of recovery or use, in a sacred place for religious purposes. Such items are a feature of modern and ancient societies and are generally made in order to gain favor with supernatural forces.
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