Michael R. McCarthy

Roman armour and metalworking at Carlisle, Cumbria, England

Recent excavations at the Roman fort in Carlisle, Cumbria, have yielded a large number of pieces of articulated Roman armour and other items. This is the most important such find in Britain since the Corbridge hoard was excavated in 1964 (Allason-Jones & Bishop 1988). On the north side of the via principalis adjacent to the headquarters building ( principia ), the corner of a timber building was uncovered (FIGURE 2). On the floor was a quantity of articulated and disarticulated fragments of predominantly ferrous Roman armour, including as many as three crushed, but complete, laminated arm defences. Although first used by Hellenistic cavalry and referred to in Xenophon’s Art of horsemanship (XI.13-XII.5), and later used by gladiators, this type of armour was adopted by Roman legionaries. It was once thought that armguards ( manicae ) were very rare and only employed under special circumstances, such as Trajan’s wars in Dacia where they were used to counter the deadly scythe-like falx (Richmond 1982: 49–50). A number of similar finds have been made, as at Newstead (Curle 1911: plate XXIII) and Richborough, Kent (M. Lyne pers. comm.), but they are often isolated and the pieces crushed, making reconstruction difficult and speculative. A graffito from Dura-Europos (FIGURE 1) shows a mounted soldier with a tall helmet and a mail or scale neck-guard, with similar limb and abdominal defences (Robinson 1975: figure 190). The Carlisle assemblage is important for the retrieval of articulated pieces, with associated copper-alloy rivets and leather.

Report on the Excavation at the Duggleby Howe Causewayed Enclosure, North Yorkshire, May—July 2009

The Neolithic round barrow at Duggleby Howe comprises a substantial mound surrounded by a large causewayed ditch. The mound covers a rich Middle Neolithic burial sequence, as revealed by Mortimers nineteenth-century excavations, and occupies a position on the northern valley side of the Gypsey Race, near to the streams source. Following the recent radiocarbon dating of the burial sequence and primary mound building, a small research excavation was undertaken across the ditch of the large, penannular causewayed enclosure that surrounds the mound primarily in order to obtain artefactual and ecofactual material from which to construct a relative and absolute chronology for the ditch sequence(s).

The Kingdom of Rheged: A Landscape Perspective

Abstract For over a century scholars have been wrestling with early Welsh poetry and associated texts in an attempt to shed light on the activities of North British kings resisting the expansion of the kingdoms of Bernicia and Northumbria. This paper first of all questions some of the historical reasoning about the kingdom of Rheged, especially its location and extent. Secondly, looking at the period from an archaeological perspective, it identifies potential heartlands on either side of the Solway. Although the location of Rheged cannot, and probably never will, be settled, it is suggested that it is unlikely to have straddled both sides of the Solway. Whichever heartland scholars may prefer, the natural advantages of the areas highlighted including the landscape, the resource potential and communications, would have provided a powerful incentive for the Northumbrians intent on expanding westwards.

A Post-Roman Sequence at Carlisle Cathedral

Excavations in 1988 revealed a stratigraphic sequence extending from the later Roman period to the twelfth century. Of particular interest and importance is a collection of Viking-Age metalwork which, with other material, sheds light on settlement in Carlisle before the arrival of the Normans in 1092.

Carlisle: function and change between the first and seventh centuries AD

Archaeological excavations combined with antiquarian observations shed considerable light on the evolution of Roman Carlisle. From being a fort in the northern advance under Cerialis and Agricola, Carlisle developed as a nodal hub supported by a number of activity ‘zones’. By the early third century most had become absorbed into the newly created civitas capital. The Roman town declined and stone buildings became ruinous, a process that probably commenced before the fourth century and continued until the land was taken over by the kings of Northumbria and the church in the seventh century. Scanty archaeological records for the sub- and post-Roman periods are supplemented by implications for socio-political structures drawn from texts.

Not drowning but waving: one approach to the problem of the publication of large archaeological assemblages

A further contribution to the continuing debate on the best means of making the voluminous results of rescue excavations available to the archaeological community (see ANTIQUITY 64: 667–71; 65: 822–8).