- Inveresk Roman Fort
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Coordinates: 55°56′12″N 3°03′17″W / 55.936541°N 3.054636°W
Inveresk Roman Fort 
Inveresk Parish Kirk, site of the Roman Fort
Inveresk Roman Fort
Inveresk Roman Fort shown within East LothianOS grid reference NT345722 List of places: UK • Scotland • East Lothian Inveresk Roman Fort is an archaeological site within the grounds of St Michael's Church, Inveresk, a village in East Lothian, Scotland. Several seasons of excavation since 1946, both major and minor, have established the outline of the fort and recovered some of the interior detail.[1][2]
The fort covered an area of 6.6 acres (2.7 ha), placing it at the larger end of the spectrum of fort sizes.[3] For this reason, the original excavator, Professor Sir Ian Richmond, believed that a cavalry regiment had been stationed here. Little is known of the interior buildings, so this hypothesis cannot yet be tested. Around 2008 a Roman tombstone was found at Inveresk depicting a Roman Governer's guard cavalry officer called "Crescens" who was stationed and died there.[4]
Samian bowl from Inveresk
All of the datable artefacts point to Antonine occupation.[5] Consequently, the fort is thought to have been established in the immediate aftermath of the invasion of Scotland launched by the emperor Antoninus Pius in AD 139/140. Two clear phases of occupation were identified archaeologically, perhaps occasioned by a change of garrison during the Antonine period. The fort will have been abandoned, along with the other Scottish sites, around AD 160, when Hadrian's Wall was recommissioned.
A substantial civil settlement (vicus) lay outside the east rampart of the fort, and included a curving structure thought to be an amphitheatre.[6]
The fort's Roman name remains unknown, although it has been suggested that Ptolemy's Κούρια (Curia or Coria), located in the lands of the Votadini,[7] should be identified with Inveresk, "the name being transferred from a native meeting-place which it controlled (in this case perhaps Arthur's Seat, 4 miles to the west)".[8] It may also have been called "Evidensca" according to the Ravenna Cosmography.[9][10]
Notes
- ^ Richmond, I. A. (1980). "A Roman fort at Inveresk, Midlothian". Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 110: 286–304. http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/adsdata/PSAS_2002/pdf/vol_110/110_286_304.pdf.
- ^ Leslie, A. (2002). "The Roman fort at Inveresk". In Bishop, M. C. (ed.). Roman Inveresk: Past, Present and Future. Duns: The Armatura Press. pp. 17–28.
- ^ Duncan B. Campbell, Roman Auxiliary Forts 27 BC-AD 378 (Oxford: Osprey, 2009), pp. 28-32, on the sizes of auxiliary forts.
- ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/7066539.stm
- ^ e.g. J.P. Gillam's report on "The Coarse Pottery", in Richmond, op. cit., pp. 300-302, concluding that "taken as a whole, the group [of pottery] is early Antonine; ... there are no Flavian pieces"; cf. Grace Simpson, "The Decorated Samian Pottery", in Richmond, op. cit., pp. 302-303, dating the three available sherds to "c AD 138-165".
- ^ T. Neighbour, "Excavations on the 'amphitheatre' and other areas east of Inveresk fort", in: M.C. Bishop (ed.), Roman Inveresk: Past, Present and Future (Duns: The Armatura Press, 2002), pp. 41-51.
- ^ Ptol., Geog. II, 3, 7; also found in the Ravenna Cosmography (107.41) as CORITIOTAR, which is thought to be a corruption of Coria Votad(inorum)
- ^ A.L.F. Rivet & Colin Smith, The Place-names of Roman Britain (London: B.T. Batsford Ltd., 1979), p. 320, s.v. CORIA of the Votadini
- ^ http://www.romanmap.com/htm/ravcosm/rc159-189.htm
- ^ http://www.romanmap.com/htm/nomina/Eiudens.htm
References
- M.C. Bishop (ed.), Roman Inveresk: Past, Present and Future (Duns: The Armatura Press, 2002)
Categories:- Roman forts in Scotland
- Archaeological sites in Midlothian
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