Durobrivae (Water Newton)

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Silver cup from the Water Newton Treasure. Cup-text.jpg
Silver cup from the Water Newton Treasure.

Durobrivae was a Roman fortified garrison town located at Water Newton in the English county of Cambridgeshire, where Ermine Street crossed the River Nene. More generally, it was in the territory of the Corieltauvi in a region of villas and commercial potteries. The name is a Latinisation of Celtic (or more accurately Brythonic) *Durobrīwās, meaning essentially "fort (by the) bridges". [1]

Roman Britain part of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire

Roman Britain was the area of the island of Great Britain that was governed by the Roman Empire, from 43 to 410 AD. It comprised almost the whole of England and Wales and, for a short period, southern Scotland.

Water Newton village in the United Kingdom

Water Newton is a village and civil parish in Cambridgeshire, England. Water Newton lies approximately 5 miles (8 km) west of Peterborough. Water Newton is situated within Huntingdonshire which is a non-metropolitan district of Cambridgeshire as well as being a historic county of England. As the population of the village was 88 only at the 2011 Census it is included in the civil parish of Chesterton.

England Country in north-west Europe, part of the United Kingdom

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to the west and Scotland to the north-northwest. The Irish Sea lies west of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south. The country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain, which lies in the North Atlantic, and includes over 100 smaller islands, such as the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight.

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During the Iron Age Britain was divided into distinct tribal areas. The area lay between the Catuvellauni to the south and the Corieltauvi to the north, with the Iceni to the east. The origin of Durobrivae is said to have been as a vicus attached to a "pre-Flavian" fort, established about half a kilometre to the east of modern Water Newton, between the Claudian invasion of 43 AD, and the beginning of the reign of Vespasian in 69 AD. [2] Its first historical mention is in the Antonine Itinerary of the late 2nd century. [3] Archaeology of the Roman period shows that Durobrivae was then the production centre for a fine tableware known as Nene Valley Colour Coated Ware, from the 2nd century to the 4th. [2] In Anglo-Saxon times, local settlement came to centre on Medeshamstede, now known as Peterborough.

The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age system, preceded by the Stone Age (Neolithic) and the Bronze Age. It is an archaeological era in the prehistory and protohistory of Europe and the Ancient Near East, and by analogy also used of other parts of the Old World. The three-age system was introduced in the first half of the 19th century for the archaeology of Europe in particular, and by the later 19th century expanded to the archaeology of the Ancient Near East. Its name harks back to the mythological "Ages of Man" of Hesiod. As an archaeological era it was first introduced for Scandinavia by Christian Jürgensen Thomsen in the 1830s. By the 1860s, it was embraced as a useful division of the "earliest history of mankind" in general and began to be applied in Assyriology. The development of the now-conventional periodization in the archaeology of the Ancient Near East was developed in the 1920s to 1930s. As its name suggests, Iron Age technology is characterized by the production of tools and weaponry by ferrous metallurgy (ironworking), more specifically from carbon steel.

Catuvellauni British tribe of the Iron Age and Roman era

The Catuvellauni were a Celtic tribe or state of southeastern Britain before the Roman conquest, attested by inscriptions into the 4th century.

Iceni British tribe of the Iron Age and Roman era

The Iceni or Eceni were a Brittonic tribe of eastern Britain during the Iron Age and early Roman era. Their territory included present-day Norfolk and parts of Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, and bordered the area of the Corieltauvi to the west, and the Catuvellauni and Trinovantes to the south. In the Roman period, their capital was Venta Icenorum at modern-day Caistor St Edmund.

See also

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References

  1. ↑ Celtic Names and Roman Places. JSTOR. Retrieved 24 July 2008.
  2. 1 2 Water Newton Huntingdonshire Draft Report. Archived 9 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine . Cambridgeshire County Council. Retrieved 24 July 2008.
  3. ↑ Parthey, Gustav and Pinder, Moritz (eds.) Itinerarivm Antonini Avgvsti et Hierosolymitanum: ex libris manu scriptis Iter Britanniarvm (Iter V: Item a Londinio Luguvalio ad vallum mpm clvi sic) Friederich Nicolaus, Berlin, 1848. See also Reynolds, Thomas Iter Britanniarum or that part of the itinerary of Antoninus which relates to Britain with a new comment J. Burges, Cambridge, 1799

Coordinates: 52°33′32″N0°20′54″W / 52.55899°N 0.34821°W / 52.55899; -0.34821

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