ISSUE 21 - APRIL 2002

 

1 From Germans to Romans Brenda Ludvigsen
2 Roman Votive Coins from Piercebridge Identified Ray Selkirk
3 Silk Peter Dewart
4 The Truth Behind Raymond Selkirk's Stay in Hospital Pauline Magee
5 Hadrian - Wall Builder Tom Wright
6 NAG Documentary Premiered  
7 Major Town Rediscovered  
8 More Water Power  
9 Book Review - Chester-le-Street and it Place in History  
10 Did You Know? - Rain Norman Cassidy

 

 

 

FROM GERMANS TO ROMANS

By Brenda R Ludvigsen

 

The Group received an unusual request during the summer, to inspect an underground air raid shelter, left over from World War II.  Mr Harrison from Roman Avenue, Chester-le-Street had moved his garden shed in his back garden to build a patio for his wife and had discovered the construction.   He thought the building should be recorded and contacted Raymond Selkirk.  However, Ray was in hospital at the time and I was asked to investigate.

Mr Harrison’s house is semi-detached, the eastside one of the pair, and the two houses were built in the late 1950s in the orchard of the neighbouring house.   The other properties in the area are from the 1930s, erected on farmland, so the shelter was probably for the use of Mr Harrison’s neighbour.   The concrete roof of the shelter was level with his lawn, half of it in his garden and the other half under the garden of the other semi, with the dividing fence going over the top.  The width of the shelter was 9ft, which included 2 ft 6ins for the entrance, and length to the fence of 6ft 2ins, with equivalent measurements in the adjacent garden.  There had been metal and wooden steps down into the shelter but these had corroded away.  The entrance was half full of soil and rubbish.  It would seem that the builder had merely covered the shelter with topsoil and omitted to tell the new owners.

Roman Avenue, which is on the site of a Roman road, runs past the side of the Roman fort.  The Avenue is on an east/west alignment joining Front Street in Chester-le-Street, and running to the bypass.  Front Street is on the line of Cade’s Road, the Roman road from Brough on Humber to Newcastle upon Tyne.  Two years ago I had been involved in an excavation in a garden two streets away, nearer to the fort, where we found remains of the vicus, the Roman town outside of the fort.  I always carry my dowsing rods with me and as I was curious to know whether the vicus extended in the direction of Mr Harrison’s garden, approximately 300 yards east of the fort, I dowsed the garden with permission from Mr Harrison.  I picked up the imprint of a Roman road running parallel with the fence on the east side of the garden opposite to the shelter, together with a possible building.  I could see that Mr Harrison was sceptical about the dowsing, but I’m used to people’s disbelief so it did not worry me.  However, he was interested in the possibility of Roman remains in his garden and gave us full rein to dig anywhere we wanted to; a brave man indeed.     

I organised the gang for the following Sunday and two teams began to work, one team clearing the shelter, the other starting a trench over the site of the possible Roman remains.  It soon became clear that we were going to run short of space for the spoil heaps, so it was decided to leave the shelter for another day and continue with the trench.  However one of the chaps crawled into the shelter to take further measurements, and I climbed down into the entrance and was able to take a few photographs.  The soil extended right into the shelter and it would have taken several skip loads to remove it.

 Over the next three Sundays we excavated three large trenches, or holes depending on your outlook, measuring 4 ft square and 4ft deep.  Two were running parallel to the fence and in the first trench, at a depth of two ft, we came across small squared stones as if part of a wall had tumbled down.  In both trenches at 4ft down we found cobbles of the Roman road, together with pottery and a possible ball for a ballista or slingshot.   The third trench was adjacent to the first but towards the centre of the garden, and there we found the cobbles of the road extending a further 18 ins, so we had found the edge. Next to the cobbles we uncovered about 18ins of ash, as if a wooden wall had burnt, then thick clay of a possible floor.  We also discovered a throwing stone, which was taken to South Shields fort for comparison with their finds. I dowsed the building as a workshop but no remains were found to confirm its use.

On our last Sunday, after hopefully leaving the garden as neat as we had found it, Mr and Mrs Harrison asked if we would be interested in excavating the front garden.   I think they enjoyed the experience as much as we had.  Although we take our work seriously we have fun doing it.  We met as Ray’s students but are now friends and socialise together.  So my handy rods came into use again and a building with cobbled floor was dowsed near to the front fence and driveway.   We arranged to return on the following Sunday.

 The excavation was on a similar scale as in the back garden and at a depth of 3 ft we came to a shale or clinker surface.  At the north side of the trench, parallel with the fence, we came upon a field drain.  It must have been old as there was no trace in the stratification to indicate the trench to lay the pipes.  As Ray was still in hospital I took one of the sections of the pipe to show him.  It certainly made a change from the bunch of grapes he would have received.  The piece of drainpipe was 12ins long, 2ins thick, round with a flat base, and handmade as the maker’s finger-marks could be seen.  He identified it as of 17thC manufacture.   We carefully replaced the pipe, as the drain appeared to be still in use. Digging through the shale a further foot we came to a good cobbled surface.    A large pile of cinders was found in the southwest corner of the trench, which was dowsed as coming from a furnace.  The building was dowsed as a metal workshop but apart from finding pieces of tile there was nothing to confirm its use. 

 

Ray is now out of hospital and well on the way to recovery so I recently took him to meet Mr and Mrs Harrison.  I also took a small display I made of the pottery found, which included Crambeck and Black burnished ware, as a memento of our excavations.  I think we must have made a good impression as we have been invited back to dig any time we wish.  It would be interesting to see if there is anything left of the building in the back garden and I will probably take Mr Harrison up on his offer.  Incidentally, the shelter has been paved over and Mrs Harrison now has her patio but perhaps someone in 60 years’ time will rediscover the shelter again.

The media heard of our exploits and we were featured, with coloured photographs, in the local and national newspapers, garden magazines, and even Ceefax and Teletext.   Good publicity for the Group.

 October 2001                                                                        

 

 

       

 

Roman votive coins from Piercebridge identified

by Raymond Selkirk, BA(Hons), BSc(Hons)

 

A thousand Roman coins have been found by our divers along the line of the genuine Dere Street Roman Bridge at Piercebridge, on the present and Roman riverbed, which were one and the same. Forget about the expensive stainless-steel notices on the Roman site downstream which claim that the remains of the high-and-dry Roman spillway of a dam was a second Roman bridge and that the river has moved sideways and cut a sixteen-feet deeper channel since Roman times. How could our sand-free Tees cut a sixteen-feet deeper channel through solid rock in less that 2000 years when the Colorado River, the most abrasive in the world and which is liquid sandpaper and carries ten tons of sand in suspension past any point every second, has taken 2,000 years to cut down nine inches? Where therefore is the Piercebridge Canyon? And while the Colorado started its cutting action millions of years ago, why is it that our “experts’ postulate that the Tees suddenly commenced its mythical excavation through sixteen-feet of rock only during the Roman period? Arts-trained archaeologists should set themselves up as neither civil engineers nor geologists unless they take the appropriate degrees or receive proper training. The time has come when they can no longer bluff the general public merely by having a university background.

 

John Casey of Durham University identified most of the coins from the genuine Dere Street Bridge and pronounced that that they were votive offerings cast onto the Roman riverbed during the whole 400 years of Roman occupation. However, local museums proclaim that the river in Roman times was not here at all but sixteen-feet higher and 200 yards to the south running through midair over the high-and-dry spillway of the Roman dam. According to these museums, after flowing under the genuine Dere Street Roman Bridge, the river leapt upwards and sideways to flow over the high and dry flood spillway of the Roman dam further downstream. Only high winter floods crossed this spillway, which was a Roman dam protection device. Similar spillways can be seen on almost every dam in the world and these devices are usually at an extreme end of the structure to be protected from flood damage.

 

 

The coins span the whole 400-year occupation period as does the Roman pottery found along the line of the genuine Dere Street bridge, so there was no need for a second bridge downstream. The deviation of Dere Street shown on notice boards is purely fictitious and was invented to attempt to show that the second structure was a replacement Roman bridge for one, which had washed away.

 

There follows References, compiled by Dr John Casey for our divers regarding some of the Roman coins recovered from the present and Roman riverbed along the line of the genuine Roman bridge, which has its southern abutment in the garden below the George Hotel. After the recent floods, this abutment is now peeping out of the bank side and would make an excellent excavation, which would dispel the myths of recent years once and for all.

 

Mattingly & Sydenham (1923-81) [unless otherwise stated]

Cun              -   Besley & Bland, The Cunetio Treasure (1983)

LRBC          -   Carson, Hill & Kent, Late Roman Bronze Coinage (1976)

MAZ           -   Mazard, Corpus Nummorum Numidiae Mauretaniaeque (1955)

SS                -   Septimus Severus

Issuer's name inside quotation marks indicates counterfeits.

 

Issuer                                      Denomination             Reference       Date

Juba II [Mauretania]                  AE  20mm                    MAZ.286          22-23

Nero                                         As                                -                       64-68

Galba                                        Denarius                       167                   68-69

Vespasian                                 Denarius                       99                     76

                                                Sestertius                      460                   71

Titus                                         Denarius                       229                   80-81

Domitian                                   Denarius                       149                   90

Nerva                                       As                                86                     97

                                                Sestersius                       -                       97

Trajan                                       Sestersius                     as625                112-114

                                                Dupondius                     as414                99-117

                                                As                                393                   98-99

Hadrian                                    Denarius                       118(a)               119-122

                                                Sestersius                     751                   134-138

                                                 Sestersius                     -                       117-138

Antoninus Pius                          Denarius (frag)             162                   147-148

                                                Denarius                       219 etc             152-153

                                                Sestersius                     751                   144

                                                Dupondius                     -                       138-161

                                                As                                as679                140-144

Faustina I                                  Denarius                       394(a)               141-161

                                                Sestersius                     1102(a)             141-161

Faustina II                                Denarius                       515(a)               145-161

M Aurelius, caes.                      Sestersius                     468                   155-159

                                                As                                1322                 154-155

Ant.Pius, deified                        Denarius                       436                   161-162

M Aurelius                                Denarius                       48                     161-162

                                                Sest.(pierced)                as1205              161-180

‘Faustina II’                              Denarius(plated)            686                   161+

Faustina II  deified                     Denarius                       373                   175-180

                                                Sestersius                     1693                 175-180

Lucilla                                      Sestersius                     1732                 164-169

Commodus                                Denarius                       as57                 181-192

                                                Sestersius                     441                   183-184

Crispina                                    Sestersius                     672                   177

                                                Sestersius                     -                       177

Clodius Albinus                         Denarius                       7                      193-196

Septimus Severus                      Denarius                       10                     193-194

                                                Denarius                       289                   202-210

                                                As                                716                   195-196

'Septimus Severus'                     Denarius (cast)             40                     194+

                                                Denarius (plated)           -                       193+

‘Julia Domna'                            Denarius                       552                   196-211

‘Julia Domna'                            Denarius (plated)           553                   196+

Caracalla                                  Denarius                       11                     196-198

                                                Denarius (plated)           158                   206-210

‘Caracalla’                                Denarius (plated)           asSS150            200+

                                                Denarius                       SS186               202+

Elagabalus                                Denarius                       49                     221

                                                Denarius (rolled, edges crimped)            218-222

'Elagabalus'                               Denarius (plated)           104                   218+

Julia Maesa                               Denarius                       268                   218-222

Julia Soemias                            Denarius                       241                   218-222

Julia Paula                                Denarius                       211                   218-222

Severus Alexander                    Denarius                       7(c)                  222

                                                Denarius                       133                   233-235

'Severus Alexander'                   Denarius (plated)           120                   222+

                                                Denarius                       -                       222+

Julia Mamaea                            Denarius                       335                   222-235

                                                Denarius                       335                   222-235

Gordian III                                Antoninianus                 38                     238-244

'Gordian III'                              Antoninianus (plated)

                                                Trebonoanus Gallus       55                     253+

Volusian                                   Antoninianus                 168                   251-253

' Trebonoanus Gallus'                 Antoninianus (plated)

                                                Gallienus                       17                     253+

Gallienus                                   Antoninianus                 18                     252-258

Valerian II                                Antoninianus                 20                     253-255

Valerian II, deified                     Antoninianus                 9                      255

Salonina                                    Antoninianus                 31                     256-257

'Claudius II' deified                    Antoninianus                 266                   270+

Postumus                                  Antoninianus                 39                     258-268

Victorinus                                 Antoninianus                 asCun2537        268-270

'Victorinus'                                Antoninianus                 118                   268+

Tetricus I                                  Antoninianus                 98/9                  270-273

'Tetricus I'                                Antoninianus                 141                   273+

Victorinus/Tetricus                    Antoninianus                 -                       268-273

'Victorinus/Tetricus'                   Antoninianus                 -                       268+

Carausius                                  Aurelianus                    880                   286-290

Constantius II                            Siliqua                           Arles207          353-355

Valentinian, house                     Sil (clipped)                   as Trier (a)       378-383

Theodosius, house                     -                       LRBC.2.807 etc            395-402

 

And hundreds more…………………                            

 

       

 

Silk

By Peter Dewart

 

The Romans knew of silk at quite an early date. It is reported that the seven legions of M. Licinius Crassus were in pursuit of fleeing Parthians across the Euphrates in 53 B.C., when the Parthians deployed their shock tactic. Wheeling suddenly, they released a heavy hail of arrows - the Parthian shot - and charged the legions, unfurling huge silken banners, which blazed and flashed in the sunlight. Shocked and demoralised, the Romans fled leaving almost half of their number dead on the battlefield.

 

The Romans realised that the relatively primitive Parthians could not have made these huge shimmering banners themselves and set about trying to find the source of the material. This turned out to be a mysterious people living far out across central Asia. By trading they obtained samples of this new alluring material, "light as a cloud" and "translucent as ice", but demand soon exceeded supply. At one time silk was worth its own weight in gold.

 

The Parthians were not slow to cotton on (sorry!) that they could make fortunes as middlemen in the trade, so the silk route from China became consolidated as a regular trade route. It was not known as the 'Silk Route' until the nineteenth century, however.

 

Staring in China at Xi'an - famous now for its terracotta warriors - the route led between the southern edge of the Gobi desert and the massive Klin Lun Mountains and on to kashgar. It then headed westwards over "the roof of the world" - The High Pamir - and on to Samarkand, Isfahan and Palmyra - "the place of palms" - a distance of over four thousand miles.

 

As it developed, branching routes went to Bokhara; over the Karakoram passes to Srinagar; to Shiraz and the Persian Gulf and Baghdad among many others. At Palmyra, the western end, there are still extensive and spectacular ruins left by the Romans as a reminder of how important this place was to the empire.

 

When steady supplies reached Rome, all emperors and Patricians wanted to wear silk. Tiberius, however, thought it was decadent and banned men from wearing it. Gibbons comments that a silk garment was considered an ornament to a woman, but a disgrace to a man. Pliny, however, wrote disapprovingly of the new see-through material, which "renders women naked" and blamed women for the drain on the empire's economy imposed by their demand for silk!

 

Later, the horsemen of central Asia adopted silk as part of their body armour because it was light, cool in summer, warm in winter. The lightness also meant that their horses were faster and more nimble than those used by warriors wearing metal armour - and one other surprising advantage; often, when hit by an arrow the silk did not break, it gathered into the wound. By carefully teasing the material, the arrow could be extracted. The wound was still there, of course, but it was clean and could be dressed. Silk also has a mild disinfectant property. Whether the Romans discovered this use for silk is not known, but it would probably have been more expensive than chain mail.

 

Much of the material was derived from the book "Foreign Devils on the Silk Road" by Peter Hopkirk, published by John Murray in 1980, who gave permission for its use.

                                                                                            

       

 

Ray Selkirk, the truth behind his stay in hospital

 

NAG members and all Ray’s friends were pleased to hear that he made a very good recovery following his stroke last year.  His tour of local hospital facilities took him first to the new hospital at Dryburn, then to the Freeman where he had a pacemaker fitted and finally to Chester-le-Street General Hospital for further physiotherapy.

 

Ray livened up Aidan ward in Chester-le-Street General where he returned to form telling dreadful jokes, all with a groan factor of at least 11 on a scale of 0-10. Rumours that he was transferred to Chester-le-Street because hospital staff at Dryburn couldn’t stand any more of his old jokes (the old ones are the best) have been dismissed by members of Ray’s Chester-le-Street evening class.

 

His stay at Dryburn shows that if ever there was a case of over zealousness on the part of NAG members to excavate then Ray provides, as ever, a good example. No sooner did he hear that the old Dryburn hospital was being demolished and the new hospital open then he cunningly got himself admitted on the pretext of needing hospital care. Asked where he had hidden his trowel as he was in a prime site for excavating, very near to a JCB, he looked a bit furtive so Nag members can confidently expect to hear an announcement –  “Dryburn, the site of our lost Roman town.  Well, we’ve known about it for ages and now we’ve got the proof!  A number of us got ourselves admitted and during the night we scraped around with our trowels and we came up with the evidence.  Mike Hodgson’s going to arrange for a crane to move the forum and I’m on Radio Newcastle tomorrow.  We’ve got them on the run you know, they don’t know what a lewis hole is!” 

 

 

                                       

So the Scourge of Valletta Convention will soon be back with us.  He’ll be out there prodding the fields with Len Ludvigsen’s prototype geophys instrument pretending he’s doing his exercises.  This object, proudly produced from the back of Len’s van a while ago, closely resembles a Zimmer frame and Len says he’s fine tuning it. 

 

In the meantime here’s Ray pictured last year trying out the latest in archaeological equipment.  He’s with Jake Rollings, a member of Ray’s Chester-le-Street evening class.

Pauline Magee

 

       

Hadrian - Wall Builder.

By Tom Wright

 

 

On the 24th January A.D.76 a son was born to a wealthy family in Rome, which had come from Spain. He was named Publius Aelius Hadrianus and like most wealthy sons in Rome he was educated by Greek Teachers and grew up admiring all things Greek. Hadrian was only nine years old when his father died and the emperor Trajan adopted the boy, Trajan being Hadrian’s father’s cousin.

 

At the age of twenty-three Hadrian married Trajan’s great niece, the thirteen-year-old Sabina Augusta who grew to be a beautiful woman. However the marriage was unhappy because Hadrian preferred the company of young men and Sabina refused to have a child saying, “an offspring of his would harm the human race”.

 

Hadrian was governor of Syria at the age of forty-one when news arrived of Trajan's death. A letter was produced (supposedly forged) claiming that Trajan elected Hadrian to succeed him so he immediately returned to Rome. Here he found that the army supported him but the Senate was against him. After four of the senate members were executed the rest soon got the message and Hadrian became emperor in 117 A.D.

 

Hadrian's policy was peace and prosperity and during his reign he achieved this to a great degree. He realised that the Empire had expanded too much and people on the periphery were difficult to control. First he gave up everything east of the Tigris an Euphrates and spent a lot of his time travelling about the empire consolidating and defining frontiers, he cared about the well being of his ordinary subjects, both Roman and Provincial and many building projects and roads are attributed to him.

 

In Germany in A.D. 121 Hadrian constructed his first artificial frontier consisting of timber palisades and ditches. The following year he came to Britain, possibly directly to the Tyne. There is a hint, but no proof, of trouble in northern Britain between A.D. 110 and A.D. 120; the 6th legion sailed into the Tyne about this time to replace the 9th legion, which disappears from history about the same time. The 6th legion was stationed at York from this time to the end of Roman Britain, but why sail into the Tyne? Surely the Humber would have been much nearer to York, unless they were needed in the northern area first to put down some uprising. Whatever happened we would never know, but Hadrian made the decision to erect a defensive wall right across the narrowest part of Britain Tyne to Solway, a wall that history books will always name as "Hadrian’s Wall”. The wall had a well-guarded gate in it at one roman mile intervals so it was obviously intended as a well-controlled frontier rather than a total barrier. The wall forts were added later, we could only guess the reason, indeed we do not truly know the reason why Hadrian built this wall.

 

Hadrian's biographer tells us that the emperor never travelled in style and preferred riding on horseback and even on foot with his soldiers, also sharing their rations of bread, cured meat and cheap wine. He presided over an empire with a strong economy due to his excellent administration and fund-raising ability without raising taxes.

 

Near Rome Hadrian had a magnificent villa, which can be visited to this day in which he used to retire with his favourite male companion, a young Greek named Antinous. During a tour of Egypt Antinous accompanied Hadrian and Sabina and was mysteriously drowned in the Nile, leaving Hadrian devastated. By A.D. 136 Hadrian was in poor health and a year later his wife Sabina died. The emperor retired from public life but by then was in constant pain, begging his doctors to end his life, which they refused.

 

On the 10th of July A.D. 138, aged 62 and with 2l years of rule, Hadrian managed to overdose himself and died. His adopted son Antoninus Pius succeeded him as emperor.

 

 

       

NAG Documentary Premiered

 

The work by Karen Wake and Steve Orme, a documentary, has finally been shown to the public in a premier at the Tom Cowie lecture theatre, St Peters Campus of Sunderland University. Karen and Steve have been working on this for months as part of their MA course. They had involved several volunteers from NAG in the production and the end product was of outstanding quality. The Sunderland Echo ran an article on Saturday 16th March 2002, to let people know of the event, which was attended by about 120. The programme demonstrated the work of the group using the great Roman Dam at Hylton as the historical subject. Karen and Steve will be attempting to market the concept to TV companies; we wish them every success!

 

       

 

Major Roman Town Rediscovered

 

Work in Kent may have found the major missing Roman town of Rutupiae in Richborough. A geophysical survey has revealed a lot more information about the site and Tony Wilmott, who is carrying out work on the site on behalf of English heritage, believes he has identified the lost harbour.

 

Sources:            Guardian. 13/10/2001

                        Daily telegraph. 26/12/2001

 

 

       

 

More Water Power

 

Work on a site at Gresham Street in London has uncovered two remarkable R