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Fort in Wales discovered due to coins and drought
#1
From the BBC:

Quote:The Roman fort complex discovery near Brecon was a "rare discovery for Wales" and was made following a tip from Dr Jeffrey Davies, who he has been working with on another project - the Abermagwr Roman villa excavations near Aberystwyth.

"Jeffrey Davies noticed an anomaly in Roman coin finds near Brecon, reported under the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS)," explained the aerial archaeologist.

"He had a hunch that the coins, of the Emperor Claudius, could indicate a lost early Roman fort, and passed a grid reference to me the day before a flight into central Wales.

"I couldn't believe my eyes when the pilot and I approached the location and saw fading crop marks of a major Roman fort complex, lost beneath fields and a road for nearly 2,000 years."

Between Caerwent and Chepstow, the aerial survey pinpointed only the second Roman overnight marching camp in Monmouthshire which Dr Driver said appears to show a small expeditionary force on manoeuvres, perhaps in the years around 50 AD.

"Because the campaigns against the tenacious Silures were documented by Roman historians, we expect more camps in south east Wales than we currently know about," he added.

[img width=400]http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/69213000/jpg/_69213128_aerialpic_1.jpg[/img]

Interesting story, but I'm confused by this 'coin anomaly' thing. How could coins indicate a fort nearby?
David J. Cord
www.davidcord.com
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#2
Interesting story. Regarding the coins I'd guess soldiers would be carrying a lot as part of their pay hence the speculation.
Markus Aurelius Montanvs
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#3
But why would they think coins mean a fort nearby, and not a trading post or undiscovered village?
David J. Cord
www.davidcord.com
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#4
More pics here http://heritageofwalesnews.blogspot.co.u...n-age.html
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#5
How exciting.

AD50 and the Second are already in Wales (or more probably the Twentieth).

The leap from coins to soldiers and not civilian occupation is probably because of the nature of the crop marks. Looks like squared defensive ditches to me , more indicative of Roman than Iron Age. That's not to say the soldiers could not have traded the coins with a local, of course.
Moi Watson

Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, Merlot in one hand, Cigar in the other; body thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and screaming "WOO HOO, what a ride!
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#6
Quote:From the BBC:

Between Caerwent and Chepstow, the aerial survey pinpointed only the second Roman overnight marching camp in Monmouthshire which Dr Driver said appears to show a small expeditionary force on manoeuvres, perhaps in the years around 50 AD.?

I'd like to see what the dating evidence for this is. If it is just an aerial photograph of a series of crop marks but with no actual excavation performed, then I don't see how the date can be narrowed down to 'around 50 AD'. At this time neither the legionary base at Usk ('Burrium') nor that at Caerleon ('Isca') has been established, the former by the legio XX and the latter by the legion II Augusta (although the evidence for the 20th being the builders of Usk is pretty slim).

A marching camp or an exercise camp between Caerwent ('Venta Silurum') and Caerleon dating from after the establishment of the base at the latter in AD 74/75 would seem to be a more logical candidate. Another possibility might be an expeditionary force base, campaigning to subdue the Silures tribe - but this would be later than AD 50. The regional capital (civitas) at Caerwent was only established in the 2nd century AD and may have been laid out and possibly constructed by soldiers from Caerleon, as there is some evidence for Roman military fitments from the site. This new site could surely not have been built by the 2nd Augusta as, at this time, they were involved in campaigning in the West Country under Vespasian following the AD 43 invasion, as far west as Exeter, where they built a fortress, as Tacitus tells us.

Mike Thomas
(Caratacus)
visne scire quod credam? credo orbes volantes exstare.
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#7
Maybe these mysterious coins which are so bothering me have something to do with the date.
David J. Cord
www.davidcord.com
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#8
Quote:Maybe these mysterious coins which are so bothering me have something to do with the date.

I think that the coins were referring to the site at Brecon, not the one discovered by aerial survey between Caerleon and Caerwent? As far as I can gather, there have been no excavations of this later site, or finds of coins from there. In any case, coin finds can only give the earliest date as they could have remained in circulation (or been hidden) for a considerable time. The coin hoard from Llanvaches (roughly the same area, some 600 silver denarii) showed mintings of around 9 different emperors, the earliest being (I think) from the reign of Nero, which would still be well after this date of AD 50. As I said, I would really like to see the evidence for this statement of date.

Mike Thomas
(Caratacus)
visne scire quod credam? credo orbes volantes exstare.
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#9
That's really cool. Will the farmer allow them to dig? And what a cool way to find it. I have to admit, I didn't see it until I saw the marked up photo and then the other colour one. Cool, cool, cool! Big Grin
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#10
Re the date of 50AD. This sounds plausible to me as I read somewhere (lots of thinking for the ref.) that Scapula had been chasing Caratacus into South Wales and established a line on the Usk by AD 49-50. This could well relate to that. Or part of an outer screen for Kingsholme.
Re II AVG, definatly not. They were up to their eyeballs in Cider and Clotted Cream. Quick example, Nanstallon in Cornwall has a founding date of circa AD 53. The fortress at Exeter AD55 + a 2 season period for build, possibly 3. Also the are must of been occupied and subdued to some extent for a while before building work commenced so we could be looking at a date around AD 50 for the second to be in the Dumnonii peninsula..
Kevin
Kevin
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#11
Thought that would work...:twisted:
Moi Watson

Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, Merlot in one hand, Cigar in the other; body thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and screaming "WOO HOO, what a ride!
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#12
Quote:Re the date of 50AD. This sounds plausible to me as I read somewhere (lots of thinking for the ref.) that Scapula had been chasing Caratacus into South Wales and established a line on the Usk by AD 49-50. This could well relate to that. Or part of an outer screen for Kingsholme.
Re II AVG, definitely not. They were up to their eyeballs in Cider and Clotted Cream. Quick example, Nanstallon in Cornwall has a founding date of circa AD 53. The fortress at Exeter AD55 + a 2 season period for build, possibly 3. Also the are must of been occupied and subdued to some extent for a while before building work commenced so we could be looking at a date around AD 50 for the second to be in the Dumnonii peninsula..
Kevin

Lucky old Secunda Augusta - too full of clotted cream teas to move! Makes a nice picture, doesn't it - all those tough legionaries sitting around eating scones with jam and cream? Big Grin Yes, as you say the line of forts established down into the Exeter area would have kept the 2nd out of South Wales well beyond this date (AD 50). However, I don't think that the new fort could be considered as part of an outer defence line for Gloucester/Kingholme - too far away and too isolated.

Of course, the army was campaigning against the Silures and this could certainly have been a fortress built during Scapula's efforts to subdue the unruly "Welsh" tribe. But it could equally have been a practice camp for the legionaries from Isca at a later date, or maybe even the encampment used by the soldiers who constructed (if they did) Venta Silurum in the 2nd century. It's all a matter of dating the site and an aerial survey will not do this for you, unless there is some feature in the crop marks that suggests a particular date, e.g. the shape of the encampment. In short, it needs a dig to find something like coins or bits of samian pottery - which should all be of Southern Gaulish origin if the fort was built at this early date of AD 50 or so. If the latter, then it would have to be some really early stuff, as the La Graufesenque potteries were operating well up the 1st century AD. Anyone got the odd million quid for a dig? Smile

Mike Thomas
(Caratacus)
visne scire quod credam? credo orbes volantes exstare.
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#13
Heck I bet we could find tons of forts like this just scanning interesting areas with Google Earth.
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#14
Quote:Heck I bet we could find tons of forts like this just scanning interesting areas with Google Earth.

There was a chap (whose name I forget) who, after the 1st World War, did an aerial survey of the Somme area. There was surprisingly little damage outside the front lines, which were very narrow bands anyway, in many cases only few hundred yards wide. What he found was that there were hundreds of villas, scattered all over the region. These showed up as white chalk marks against the brown of the soil after the Spring ploughing. He calculated that the region supported as many people in Roman times as it was supporting when he made the survey - which was around 20,000 people, approximately (presumably not including towns like Peronne, Albert and Bapaume.)

However, I bet you are correct about Google Earth. There is an American lady archaeologist who has done similar work using satellite imagery to 'discover' ancient remains in the Nile Delta as well as the site of the harbour that Claudius caused to be constructed outside Rome.

Mike Thomas
(Caratacus)
visne scire quod credam? credo orbes volantes exstare.
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#15
It's tempting to search the area around Pouan for evidence of the camps from the Battle of Chalons. A big army camp (or several) is going to leave an impression.
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