Inveresk Roman Fort is an archaeological site within the grounds of St Michael's Church,
Inveresk
Inveresk (Scottish Gaelic, Gaelic: ''Inbhir Easg'') is a village in East Lothian, Scotland situated to the south of Musselburgh. It has been designated a Conservation area (United Kingdom), conservation area since 1969. It is situated on s ...
, a village in
East Lothian
East Lothian (; sco, East Lowden; gd, Lodainn an Ear) is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland, as well as a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area. The county was called Haddingtonshire until 1921.
In 1975, the histo ...
, Scotland.
Fort
The fort covered an area of 6.6 acres (2.7 ha), placing it at the larger end of the spectrum of fort sizes. For this reason, the original excavator,
Ian Richmond
Sir Ian Archibald Richmond, (10 May 1902 – 5 October 1965) was a British archaeologist and academic. He was Professor of the Archaeology of the Roman Empire at the University of Oxford. In addition, he was Director of the British School at Ro ...
, believed that a cavalry regiment had been stationed here. In 2007 a Roman tombstone was found at nearby Carberry depicting a
Roman Governor
A Roman governor was an official either elected or appointed to be the chief administrator of Roman law throughout one or more of the many provinces constituting the Roman Empire.
The generic term in Roman legal language was '' Rector provinciae ...
's guard cavalry trooper named ''"Crescens"'' who was perhaps residing at the fort when he died.
Occupation
All of the datable artefacts point to Antonine occupation. Consequently, the fort is thought to have been established in the immediate aftermath of the invasion of Scotland launched by the emperor
Antoninus Pius
Antoninus Pius (Latin: ''Titus Aelius Hadrianus Antoninus Pius''; 19 September 86 – 7 March 161) was Roman emperor from 138 to 161. He was the fourth of the Five Good Emperors from the Nerva–Antonine dynasty.
Born into a senatoria ...
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
Hadrian's Wall ( la, Vallum Aelium), also known as the Roman Wall, Picts' Wall, or ''Vallum Hadriani'' in Latin, is a former defensive fortification of the Roman province of Britannia, begun in AD 122 in the reign of the Emperor Hadrian. R ...
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.
Archaeology
Several seasons of excavation since 1946, both major and minor, have established the outline of the fort and recovered some of the interior detail.
Excavations in 2004 by
Headland Archaeology
Headland Archaeology Ltd is a wholely owned subsidiary of the RSK Group. Headland provides archaeological services and heritage advice to the construction industry.
Company history
Headland Archaeology Ltd was established in 1996. Headquartered ...
as part of work to renew the water mains in the village, found Roman artefacts and possible a boundary ditch and evidence of the
vicus
In Ancient Rome, the Latin term (plural ) designated a village within a rural area () or the neighbourhood of a larger settlement. During the Republican era, the four of the city of Rome were subdivided into . In the 1st century BC, Augustus r ...
.
In 2010, CFA Archaeology undertook excavations, as part of a planning condition in advance of the construction of the Musselburgh Primary Health Care Centre, on an area 50m to the north and down slope of the fort. Those excavations reveled a
Mesolithic
The Mesolithic (Greek: μέσος, ''mesos'' 'middle' + λίθος, ''lithos'' 'stone') or Middle Stone Age is the Old World archaeological period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic is often used synonymous ...
stone tool scatter and Iron Age burials that pre-dated the fort. Those burials were date to 50 BC – AD 130, just before the fort was built.
Isotope analysis
Isotope analysis is the identification of isotopic signature, abundance of certain stable isotopes of chemical elements within organic and inorganic compounds. Isotopic analysis can be used to understand the flow of energy through a food web ...
showed that the individuals were all local to the Musselburgh area.
The archaeologists found Roman remains, including six Roman human burials (four of which had been decapitated) and one horse burial. They also found evidence that a Roman fortlet was constructed and that at some point a Roman field system was put in place to grow food, possibly for the fort. The area was also used as a
midden
A midden (also kitchen midden or shell heap) is an old dump for domestic waste which may consist of animal bone, human excrement, botanical material, mollusc shells, potsherds, lithics (especially debitage), and other artifacts and ecofact ...
for the fort and a significant number discarded personal belongings of the fort occupants were recovered. This included
samian bowls with personal names scratched on the bases. These names plus the isotope analysis of the human skeletons, shows that the ethnic origin of those living in the fort was diverse. The names indicates there may have been a group of soldiers from Thrace at the fort. The high number of horse equipment recovered led the archaeologists to believe that the theory that a cavalry unit was stationed there at some point is likely true.
Name
The fort's Roman name remains unknown, although it has been suggested that
Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importanc ...
's Κούρια (''Curia'' or ''
Coria''), located in the lands of the
Votadini, should be identified with Inveresk, "the name being transferred from a native meeting-place which it controlled (in this case perhaps
Arthur's Seat
Arthur's Seat ( gd, Suidhe Artair, ) is an ancient volcano which is the main peak of the group of hills in Edinburgh, Scotland, which form most of Holyrood Park, described by Robert Louis Stevenson as "a hill for magnitude, a mountain in virtue ...
, 4 miles to the west)". It may also have been called ''"Evidensca"'' according to the
Ravenna Cosmography
The ''Ravenna Cosmography'' ( la, Ravennatis Anonymi Cosmographia, "The Cosmography of the Unknown Ravennese") is a list of place-names covering the world from India to Ireland, compiled by an anonymous cleric in Ravenna around 700 AD. Text ...
.
References
{{Reflist
Sources
*M.C. Bishop (ed.), ''Roman Inveresk: Past, Present and Future'' (Duns: The Armatura Press, 2002)
Archaeological sites in East Lothian
Musselburgh
Scheduled monuments in Scotland
Roman auxiliary forts in Scotland