Vindomora
| Ebchester Castle | |
|---|---|
| Alternative name | Vindomora |
| limes | Britain |
| section | Hadrian's Wall |
| Dating (occupancy) | 1st to 4th century AD |
| Type | Road and cohort fort |
| unit | Cohors IV Breucorum |
| size | 122 × 122 meters |
| Construction |
a) Wood and earth fort. b) Stone fort |
| State of preservation | square system with rounded corners, |
| place | Consett / Ebchester |
| Geographical location | 54 ° 53 '38.6 " N , 1 ° 50' 19" W |
| Previous | Longovicum (southeast) |
| Subsequently | Coriosopitum (northwest) |
Vindomora was a Roman auxiliary troop fort and was located in the area of the present-day village (Parish) Consett, district Ebchester, District Derwentside , County Durham Northumberland , England .
Excavations in the 19th and 20th centuries uncovered the remains of a multi-phase Roman fortress. They secured Dere Street , an important north-south connection in Roman Britain. The location of the vicus is also known. A large part of the fort area was destroyed by overbuilding.
Surname
The name Vindomora is only mentioned in one ancient written source, the Antonini Itinerary . It is clearly from the Celto-British language. The term Vindo (= white) can often be found where Celtic tribes settled. The suffix -mora has long been incorrectly interpreted as coming from Latin (= "black moor"). Perhaps because of the similarity of “ -mora ” with the Latin maura (= black / dark or at the end of the hill). In this case, however, it probably stands for an inland body of water that may have originally existed there, either a marked widening of the river bed or a small lake. Today there is a tendency in research that Vindomora means “the place by the clear water”.
There have been some attempts to prove that the first element of the place name in use today also comes from the Latin. But it is possible that it comes from a personal name, namely that of St. Ebba. The syllable "Eb" in Ebchester could also be derived from the Anglo-Saxon (= "above"). Vindomora actually stood on a terrace overlooking the Derwent . The second part is derived from the Old English word for attachment. The Anglo-Saxons called a walled place Chester ([ ˈtʃɛstə ]).
location
Ebchester is located on the southern bank of the Derwent, north of Consett, 19 km west of Newcastle upon Tyne , between Coriosopitum (Corbridge) and Longovicium (Lanchester) in the south. The wall itself is about 21 km away. The fort area is located on an elongated, north-sloping bank plateau in the river valley of the Derwent, which marks the border between the counties of Durham and Northumberland. According to the Itinerarium Antonini , Vindomora was at the beginning of Iter (Route) I, 19 Roman miles from Vinovium (Binchester) and 14 miles from Corbridge, Iter I started about 20 miles beyond Corbridge at the outpost fort Bremenium (High Rochester). Dere Street passed near the fort , an important long-distance route to the north of the island. a. Eburacum (York) and Coriosopitum connected with Hadrian's Wall . During excavations, traces of a narrow, 3-meter-wide Roman road and a presumed bridge over the Derwent were found around 500 meters south of the fort. It is believed that this is the Dere Street route. Another Roman road probably connected the place with Washing Wells (Wickham, Tyne and Wear), but its remains have not yet been discovered. Another road led to Whittonstall to the northwest and then possibly on to Corbridge and Hexham . Other pavement finds near the Cong Burn near Concangis (Chester-le-Street) to the east indicate that these two fort sites were connected by a road and a bridge over the Cong Burn. The region around Ebchester belonged to the province of Britannia Inferior .
Research history
The fort area has only been partially explored. No excavations have yet been carried out in the vicus. The remains of the fort's walls were mentioned in William Camden 's Britannia (Gibson edition) in 1722 as " a Roman station measuring about 200 yards square with a large suburb ". Presumably it is a description of the remains of the camp service. Smaller excavations took place in the years 1876, 1886, 1936, from 1958 to 1959, from 1962 to 1963, 1964, 1968 and 1972–1973. In the 1950s, a simple floor mosaic was found. The only other evidence of the existence of the camp village was the discovery of Roman coins and walls during an excavation south of the fort, in the St. Ebba cemetery, in 1960. The bathhouse was partially excavated in 1962. No major excavations have been undertaken since the 1972 to 1973 investigations. A fragment of a tombstone was discovered near the dairy in 1986, and the walls of the commandant's house were also destroyed. Some Roman altars and relief stones are walled in in the church. In July 2006, North Pennines Archeology Ltd. conducted an archaeological survey on the Ebchester Elementary School site.
development
According to the finding of an ax blade, the region around Ebchester may have been inhabited since the Neolithic . Vindomora itself was later founded by members of the Celto-British tribe of the Brigantes . The place was occupied just a few years after the Roman invasion. The fortress was created when Dere Street was expanded north of Eburacum to Coriosopitum . Between 69 and 117 AD. There was a wood and earth fort here, which was converted into a stone fort around 150. The camp served as a stage stop on the route to northern Britain for over 300 years. As soon as a garrison was permanently stationed here, a civilian settlement quickly developed under their protection outside the fort walls. The excavation finds showed that Vindomora went through two phases of occupation. After the first, Flavian to Early Hadrian , the fort was abandoned and was only used again by the military from the Central Cantonese period until late antiquity . The fort's crew secured a crossroads from which one also had a good view of the river and to the east. Presumably it was manned by regular soldiers until the end of the 4th century. After the Romans withdrew by 410, the area around Ebchester was apparently again uninhabited for a long time. In the period after 420 the former Roman provinces of Britain had largely disintegrated into small kingdoms and tribal territories. Dere Street remained the most important north-south connection on the British Isles until the 19th century. It is likely that the castle ruins were repopulated no later than the 7th century. The Norman parish church, now the oldest building in Ebchester, was dedicated to the abbess and saint Æbbe, daughter of King Æthelfrith of Bernicia . Most of the building fabric dates from the late 12th century. Roman stones were obviously used for their foundations. Unfortunately there are no written sources in this regard that provide an earlier date of foundation.
Fort
Today only little can be seen of the fort, as it was almost completely covered by buildings erected later. In Ebchester, however, one encounters the remains of the Roman past of this place everywhere. Altars and stones are used in gardens, houses, streets, the Mains Farm and especially the parish church. Remnants of the fence around the wood-earth fort can still be seen in a playground on the north side of Newcastle-Shotley-Bridge-Strasse, as well as those of the south-west corner and a corner tower. Remains of the fort wall, which is heavily overgrown with grass, are also visible near the post office. Its northern corner was damaged when a fence was put in place. The south side of the camp is on the St. Ebba cemetery, the south-east side can be seen as a slight bump in the ground between the graves.
Although it has been examined several times, its extent and the appearance of its buildings are not precisely known. It was almost certainly a 1st and 2nd century castle. The studies carried out by archaeologists to date (2018) have shown that the fort went through two structural construction periods on the fort wall and the Intervallum road as well as at least seven construction phases: four wood and three stone phases. It was oriented to the southwest, measured approximately 122 × 122 meters and had a rectangular floor plan with rounded corners. The fortification was probably reinforced with four square corner towers and eight intermediate towers. The fort could be entered through four gates, each of which was secured with two flank towers. The six barracks blocks ( contubernia ) stood in the north, one or two granaries ( horrea ) and workshops ( fabrica ) in the center and in the west of the area. The camp headquarters ( principia ) stood exactly in the middle, the commandant's house ( praetorium ) east of it (Mains Farm). The Principia is under Shaw Lane, just outside the churchyard. Two large cubic plinths from the western portico of this building now serve as supporting pillars for the entrance gate of the cemetery. Remains of a building with apse , stone floor and hypocaust heating , probably the bathhouse ( ballineum ) of the camp, were uncovered during the excavations in the garden of Mains Farm. Its remains were preserved up to a height of 1.5 meters. It was in operation until the 4th century. Two other rooms of the Praetorium were discovered under the farm buildings and indicate that the house may have had a central courtyard around which the individual rooms were arranged ( peristyle house ). When a drain was built, further walls of the Praetorium were discovered northwest of the farm buildings. The main street of the village is to follow the route of the Roman Dere Street which connected Lanchester with Corbridge. The west-east main warehouse street thus also corresponds to the current course of Front Street / Vindomora Road. The fort area is under the protection of the English Heritage (Ebchester Conservation Area).
garrison
Some inscriptions found in Ebchester name a fifth cohort as the builder of the camp. Unfortunately, they do not provide any clues as to which of the British legions it was assigned from. The names of the commanding centurions who were responsible for the construction and repair work under Emperor Septimius Severus are also given on the inscriptions. Centurion Martialis is mentioned in two of them. Two other centurions of this cohort are also known by name: Valerius and Varsidius Justus.
The following units were either the crew of Vindomora or may have been there for a limited time:
| Time position | Troop name | description |
|---|---|---|
| 3rd century AD |
Cohors Quartae Breucorum Antoninianae (the fourth cohort of the Breuci, the Antonines) |
This unit is the only detectable garrison unit from Ebchester. The Minerva altar , on which this troop is mentioned, probably dates from the years between 213 and 222. The inscription, however, was too badly damaged to be able to prove this beyond any doubt. The troop was nominally a 500-man auxiliary formation of infantry and was originally formed from members of the Breuci tribe , who were located in the province of Pannonia Inferior , more precisely in the Bosna Valley, in the northeast of today's Bosnia-Herzegovina . She may also have been stationed in Lavatris (Bowes, Durham) for a time. The altar was donated by the cohort's paymaster ( actarius ), Julius Graminus. She was also likely responsible for restoration work being carried out at the time of Severus' campaigns in the early third century. An altar for the camp's guardian spirit ( genius loci ) was donated by one of their prefects, Aurelius. |
Vicus
The fort was certainly also surrounded by a civilian settlement, but this has not yet been investigated.
Cult and religion
The gods worshiped in Ebchester included both Roman and Germanic-Celtic gods. Two altars found there are dedicated to the Germanic god Vitiris. The Roman gods Mars and Minerva were also worshiped in Vindomora . An altar dedicated by a certain Virilis Germanicus names the Cocidius Vernostonus, apparently a fusion of two Germanic gods. A man named Maximus had an altar made for the god Vitiris to fulfill a vow.
literature
- John Horsley: Britannia Romana, London 1732.
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, illustrated by numerous engravings on wood. William Smith, LLD. London. Walton and Maberly, Upper Gower Street and Ivy Lane, Paternoster Row; John Murray, Albemarle Street, 1854.
- F. Whellan: History and Topography and Directory of Durham. London 1894.
- RG Collingwood, RP Wright: The Roman Inscriptions of Britain. Oxford 1965.
- A. Rivet, C. Smith: The place-names of Roman Britain. 1979.
- AD Mills: Oxford Dictionary of British Place Names. Oxford University Press. 1991-2003.
- Bethany Fox: The Celtic Place-Names of North-East England and South-East Scotland. The Heroic Age, 2007.
- AH Reed, V. Maxfield: Vindomara, Roman Fort. Council for British Archeology Group 3, Bulletin 4, 1973, p. 6.
- AH Reed, Harper, M. Dodds: Excavations at Echester in 1962-1963, Series 4 Vol. XLII, 1964.
- AH Reed: Roman Fort of Vindomara, Ebchester Co. Durham. No. 3, Sept. 1974, p. 4.
- AH Reed: Vindomora; the Roman Fort at Ebchester Village. Ebchester Village Trust.
- P. Turnball, R. Jones: The Archeology of the coal measures and magnesian limestone escarpment in County Durham. Vol.1, Consett Archeology, 1978, p. 44, no. 25th
- M. Jarrett: Archaeolica Aeliana, 4th Series, 38, 1960.
- V. Maxfield, A. Reed: Archaeolica Aeliana, 5th Series, 3, 1975.
- J. Chapman, H. Mytum: Settlement in North Britain 1000 BC - 1000 AD, Oxford 1983.
- Ebchester: The Story of a North Durham Village. Ebchester Village Trust, 1984.
- IS Robinson: The Place-Names of County Durham. Sunderland 1998.
Remarks
- ↑ Whellan 1894, Robinson 1998, p. 32.
- ↑ It.Ant. 464,4, Rivet, Smith 1979 pp. 502-503, Bethany Fox 2007, p. 10, Robinson 1998, p. 32.
- ↑ Camden 1722, p. 1086, M. Jarrett, 1960 pp. 193-229, Reed, Harper, Dodds 1964. pp. 173-185, Britannia 17, 1986, p. 438.
- ↑ M. Jarrett 1960, pp. 193-229
- ↑ Maxfield, Reed 1975, pp. 43-104.
- ↑ RIB 1106 ; RIB 1107 , RIB 1109 ; RIB 1110 , RIB 1111 , RIB 1112
- ↑ RIB 1099 , RIB 1101 , RIB 1113 , RIB 739 (Bowes)
- ↑ RIB 1102 (Cocidius), RIB 1103 (Vitiris)