Excavations at the site of the University Technical College in Lincoln in 2014 by Lincolnshire archaeologists Allen Archaeology uncovered two fascinating and important late Roman burials, the report on which I have just seen and would like to share the details of here.
Roman burials have been something of a hot topic in Lincolnshire archaeology in the last couple of years, with a number of excavations revealing some fascinating new cemetery sites. We’ve had the largest single group of burials discovered from Lincoln, a new cemetery site with adults and infants near Lincoln’s waterfront, burials at the domestic complex at Lincoln’s new eastern bypass, and a burial group of non-Lincolnshire origins (including a potential execution) from Sleaford. I also posted a blog looking at incidents of infant burials in Lincoln. With all this, there’s no wonder there’s a lecture on Roman burials being held at The Collection museum in Lincoln this December.
The two new skeletons to be discussed here have sadly not survived in good condition, but the grave goods buried with them suggests that they may have been important individuals in late Roman Lincoln and perhaps also the wider region. The excavation took place at the site of the University Technical College, between the Victorian Greestone Building and the Medieval Tithe Barn. In Roman terms, the site is located some 90m to the east of the eastern walls of the lower enclosure.
Roman activity at the site began in the 1st Century, with a number of ditches and the dumping of waste materials representing activity relating to the Legionary fortress. At some point an oven or kiln was constructed on the site, perhaps indicating commercial or industrial activity, but waste dumping continued after this fell out of use. Quarry pits were also identified and a stone-lined well which may have been ritually ‘closed’ at the end of its life in order for the site to change function into a cemetery. This early activity is of great interest in itself but isn’t the focus here, so I’ll cover it in a future post in order to do it justice [UPDATE – you can read that post here].
The remains of twelve individuals were excavated at the site, dating from the 2nd Century onward, when the site became a cemetery. It seems likely that the cemetery was much larger than this handful of burials, and may have covered a swathe of the hillside outside the eastern walls. A large cemetery site is already known to the southeast, broadly at what is now Lincoln College, which included other later Roman inhumations. Nine inhumations from the current site were oriented east / west and seem to relate to a similar phase of use of the cemetery during the 2nd or 3rd Centuries. The two mid 4th Century supine burials which are the focus of this post were both oriented north east / south west, representing a change in burial practice in the intervening century. Both graves contained a number of iron nails indicative of them being coffined burials, and the grave goods associated with the burials suggest that the individuals were high status and potentially had military connections. Each grave and its associated assemblage are discussed in detail below.
Skeleton 4249
As can be seen from the in-situ image, the skeleton in this grave was in extremely poor condition, and little can be said about the individual. Even the sex of the skeleton cannot be confirmed, though the grave goods strongly suggest that it was a male. It is those grave goods that make this burial of great significance as they include, as discussed in more detail below, a crossbow brooch, a rare form of iron knife and a purse of coins among other items.
Crossbow brooch
Crossbow brooches are the dominant form of brooch found from the 4th Century and they are believed, based on burial evidence across the western provinces, to have had strong connections with males in positions of authority. Some contemporary late Roman images of crossbow brooches being worn can be seen here. It is likely that they were not made in Britain, but produced at centralised workshops and imported (Swift 2011). They are therefore rare and significant finds, especially so when excavated in context. Only a small number of Romano-British cemeteries have produced them, the well-known cemetery at Lankhills outside Winchester (Booth et al 2010) producing the most examples with 17 to date, more than the rest of Britain combined. Only a handful are known from Lincolnshire but, crucially, none previously from a burial context.
The crossbow brooch buried with skeleton 4249 is a Type 3.4a2 (Mackreth 2011), dated to AD350-380. An exceptional element of this particular brooch (though one which is strangely not mentioned in the excavation report) is that there is extensive mineralised textile surviving on the underside of the head of the brooch, evidence of the clothing the brooch was attached to at the time of burial. Further analysis is required to determine what the fabric was, and this will hopefully add more detail to the story of this individual.
Iron leaf-shaped knife
The leaf-shaped knife in the burial can be seen in the in-situ image of the grave, above, lying by the left side of the skeleton at approximately thigh level, suggesting that it was buried in the place it would have been worn in life. Although now in three pieces, the blade and tang of the knife survive, with traces of organic material on the handle. The x-ray below shows the iron tang and a small pommel. Other late Roman knives are known to have had handles made from bone or, increasingly in the later 4th Century, antler. Future analysis of the organic matter will hopefully shed more light on this.
Although it may not appear particularly special, the knife is a rare and important discovery. Parallels from the Lankhills cemetery indicate that the inclusion of knives in inhumations there occurred during the second half of the 4th Century. They were exclusively associated with males, but with seemingly no differentiation between the ages of individuals (Booth et al 2010). Other types of knives are known with female burials elsewhere in Britain, so it may be that this specific form of knife is particularly associated with high status male burials in the late Roman period.
Coins
A group of fourteen copper alloy coins (including some fused together) were found to the side of the skeleton, suggesting that they were placed in the grave as a group, perhaps originally contained in a purse. These are of value in helping to date the burial, though many are in very poor condition and difficult to accurately identify. The excavation report proposes identifications for three of the coins, though through examination of the coins and their x-rays, I would challenge some of these and suggest that additional coins are also identifiable.
Coins of the 4th Century are more datable through their reverses than their obverses, which can be incredibly similar and difficult to identify when corroded. All of the coins seem to be of mid 4th Century date, and produced by the House of Constantine. Coins /199\ and /202\, listed as unidentifiable in the report, would seem to be respectively a ‘Gloria Exercitus’ issue of AD335-341 and a ‘2 Victories’ issue of AD347-348. Coin /190\, identified as a possible ‘Fallen Horseman’ issue of c.AD354-361, would instead appear to be a ‘Constantinopolis’ issue of AD330-c.340. Coin /191\, identified as a ‘Victory’ issue of c.AD343-361, is actually another ‘Gloria Exercitus’ issue of AD335-341.
The report suggests a date range for the coin group of AD343-361 and although my proposed revisions might suggest an earliest deposition date of AD347 (based on coin /202\), the general interpretation remains unchanged – the coins represent those in common circulation in the middle of the 4th Century but which were quite worn when placed in the grave, suggesting that the burial may have occurred some years later. The crossbow brooch ( dated c.AD350-380), supports this.
Other finds
Other finds from the grave include a small copper alloy disc with protrusions at each side. This is described in the report as a dress accessory, possibly a pendant. I am slightly confused by this as the images clearly show it to be another coin, seemingly another ‘Constantinopolis’ issue (AD330-c.340) and most likely another coin from the purse group. The protrusions at the side are simply where excess metal has not been trimmed off when the coin blank was removed from the mould.
A shard of glass in the grave fill came from a clear glass stemmed beaker (the image below only looks blue because of the background I had to photograph it against!). This was dated to the late 2nd or 3rd Centuries so may represent a residual fragment or an older vessel included in the grave.
A small copper alloy loop in the burial appears superficially like an earring, though this is likely to be coincidental, especially considering that both terminals of the loop are broken. At present, the original purpose of this loop remains unknown.
Certain forms of copper alloy belt buckle can be indicative of high status late Roman burials (see the example discovered with skeleton 4222, discussed below), but the only example in this grave was a fragmentary iron example, which was most likely to have been more utilitarian and did not serve as an indicator of wealth or status.
A single ceramic counter or gaming piece is perhaps the most personal item from the burial. The simple globular form is comparable with glass examples known from Colchester and Lullingstone and it has been suggested that they might be gaming pieces, domestic weights or reckoning counters for mathematical calculations (Crummy 1983).
Finally, the inclusion of a whetstone in the grave fill is unusual as it is of a type associated with the Early Medieval period, and therefore post-dating all of the other grave goods in the burial. Does this therefore represent a later intrusion into the grave, or do whetstones of this type need to have their dating revised as a result of this find? The whetstone is of siltstone and striations on both surfaces suggest that it was used. Could it have been associated with the iron knife in the burial?
The combined dating evidence from the grave goods in the burial therefore suggests that it is likely to date to between the AD350s and 380s. The presence of the crossbow brooch (with its textile traces), unusual iron knife and coin group in particular mark it out as a burial of great significance not only to Lincoln but to wider regional and national studies of burial practices and the reflection of social status through material culture in the late Roman world.
Skeleton 4222
The second skeleton survived in slightly better condition, though still poor overall. Its condition was sufficient for it to be possible to confirm that it represents an adult male who suffered from periodontal (gum) disease.
The grave goods were fewer in number than those found with skeleton 4249 but provide an equally fascinating assemblage, indicative of another high status burial.
Crossbow brooch
The social significance of crossbow brooches in the late Roman period has been discussed above, and the example from this burial is another wonderfully well preserved and important example. This brooch does not fit the established typology as neatly as the one buried with skeleton 4249, and it is only possible to say that it dates to after AD330.
Copper alloy buckles
As mentioned above, copper alloy buckles sit alongside crossbow brooches as an object typology strongly associated with high status late Roman males. The triangular openwork example from this grave, although appearing simple in design, is another marker to the significance of the buried individual. It was originally held in place at the end of a leather belt by three rivets, still visible at the points of the triangular plate. Buckles of this form date to the mid to late 4th Century. This buckle has also recently featured on the blog of the excavators, Allen Archaeology, as their ‘Find of the Month’.
A second buckle frame in the burial is incomplete and missing its plate. It is therefore sadly difficult to say more about its potential significance.
A small scrap of copper alloy found in the grave is worth including here for the sake of completeness. Its identification is understandably obscure considering its small size and poor preservation, but it might conceivably represent a fragment of a belt buckle plate. Detailed photography of the fragment suggests that it might have preserved traces of mineralised textile, enhancing the possibility of it originating as a dress fitting of some kind.
Greyware jar
The in-situ photograph of the skeleton, above, shows a smashed pot sitting by the lower left leg. It is a simple and undecorated greyware jar or beaker which could only be dated by ceramic specialists to sometime after the mid 2nd Century. Pottery vessels were found in just 39 inhumations out of the 307 excavated between 2000 and 2005 at Lankhills (Booth et al 2010) and, interestingly, tended to be more common in graves of the first half of the 4th Century. The implications of this for the overall dating of the burial are discussed below, but the rarity at Lankhills makes this burial particularly significant.
Silver object
This small object, made of a base silver alloy, is described as a crescent shaped mount in the report, but as it is broken and fragmentary, it seems safe to assume that it was not originally a crescent and perhaps even formed a complete loop. The object is slightly concave, but is a flat strip in section rather than being fully rounded The small protrusion at the top might be the remains of an attachment, but the original function of the object remains obscure. It might represent an item of jewellery or a harness mount of some kind.
So who were these two individuals?
The key question is therefore who these two individuals were. Their grave goods indicate that they formed part of the late Roman elite, but were they military personnel in positions of authority or simply people following the fashions of the time and wearing dress accessories of that style? Lincoln is believed to have become a provincial capital when Diocletian (AD284-305) reformed the governance of the empire. Might we suggest that these individuals played some part in that administration?
The burials are likely to have differed slightly in date. Burial 4249 would seem to date to c.AD350-380, as discussed above, but burial 4222 is conceivably earlier. It contained fewer grave goods and a complete ceramic vessel, both statistically more likely to be seen in burials of the first half of the 4th Century at Lankhills. The crossbow brooch is also harder to accurately date and might be as early as AD330. The two burials might therefore be separated by anything between 20 and 50 years. Although it is pure speculation, might we see here two generations buried side by side?
Isotope analysis of similar burials has revealed the fascinating possibility that they might not be British in origin. Analysis of five of the burials at Lankhills that contained crossbow brooches and belt fittings indicated that four originated in southern or central Europe (Cool 2010). Although the poor preservation of the Lincoln burials may sadly make such analysis impossible, the potential that they represent officials from the wider empire serving in positions of administrative and military seniority at Lincoln remains an intriguing one.
The wider cemetery to the east of the lower enclosure is therefore of great importance for future study due to its potential to produce more late burials, and perhaps others of a similar nature to these two. The excavation report suggested that a publication of these burials might be possible, and I certainly hope that it becomes a reality. Far too little of Lincoln’s Roman archaeology is sufficiently published, and these two burials should be included in future syntheses of high status 4th Century burials nationally.
References
Mackreth, D. 2011. Brooches in Late Iron Age and Roman Britain. Oxbow
Swift, E. 2011. Personal ornament. In Allason-Jones, L. (Ed.) Artefacts in Roman Britain: Their Purpose and Use. Cambridge
Roman Lincolnshire Revealed 