Cunetio
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Cunetio was a large walled town in a valley of the
River Kennet The Kennet is a tributary of the River Thames in Southern England. Most of the river is straddled by the North Wessex Downs AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty). The lower reaches have been made navigable as the Kennet Navigation, which â ...
in modern-day
Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...
, England. The settlement was occupied from the 2nd century CE by
Romano-British people The Romano-British culture arose in Britain under the Roman Empire following the Roman conquest in AD 43 and the creation of the province of Britannia. It arose as a fusion of the imported Roman culture with that of the indigenous Britons, a ...
until the post-Roman period, and was abandoned in the early 5th century. Its site is near the village of Mildenhall, about east of the market town of
Marlborough Marlborough may refer to: Places United Kingdom * Marlborough, Wiltshire, England ** Marlborough College, public school * Marlborough School, Woodstock in Oxfordshire, England * The Marlborough Science Academy in Hertfordshire, England Austral ...
. The entire town lay undiscovered until it was identified from aerial photos in the 1940s. Archaeological excavations have revealed that the town was a substantial urban area defended by large masonry walls. Artefacts recovered from the site include kitchenware, personal effects, and two hoards of Roman coinage.


History

The Cunetio site has been known since the 19th century, when local antiquarians conducted sporadic excavations. The full scale and importance of the site, however, was identified from aerial photos of
crop marks Cropmarks or crop marks are a means through which sub-surface archaeological, natural and recent features may be visible from the air or a vantage point on higher ground or a temporary platform. Such marks, along with parch marks, soil marks ...
taken in 1940, and the site has been sporadically excavated since the 1950s alongside the continuation of aerial photography to further map the site. In the 1960s, a small coin hoard was found, followed in 1978 by the much larger
Cunetio Hoard __NOTOC__ The Cunetio Hoard, also known as the Mildenhall Hoard,Nigel Kerton''C4's Time Team dig in at Mildenhall'' at ''gazetteandherald.co.uk'', Friday 4 September 2009 is the largest hoard of Roman coins found in Britain. It was discovered in ...
of over 55,000 coins. The site was dug and geophysically surveyed in 2009 by
Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...
's archaeological television programme ''
Time Team ''Time Team'' is a British television programme that originally aired on Channel 4 from 16 January 1994 to 7 September 2014. It returned online in 2022 for two episodes released on YouTube. Created by television producer Tim ...
'', which found many more coins and other objects. The town grew around a
mansio In the Roman Empire, a ''mansio'' (from the Latin word ''mansus,'' the perfect passive participle of ''manere'' "to remain" or "to stay") was an official stopping place on a Roman road, or ''via'', maintained by the central government for the use ...
that had been built near the crossing of two
Roman road Roman roads ( la, viae Romanae ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, and were built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Re ...
s: the east–west road ( Margary 53) from Speen in Berkshire to
Aquae Sulis Aquae Sulis (Latin for ''Waters of Sulis'') was a small town in the Roman province of Britannia. Today it is the English city of Bath, Somerset. The Antonine Itinerary register of Roman roads lists the town as ''Aquis Sulis.'' Ptolemy records ...
(Bath), and the south-east to north road (43) from
Winchester Winchester is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs Nation ...
to Wanborough. As the town grew, it developed a regular grid of streets and stone buildings on its eastern side but retained less regular and substantial structures in the west part. The settlement's original defences were earthworks and an outer ditch; in the 4th century CE, these were replaced by massive stone walls wide, a large western gateway, and 17 semi-octagonal, external wall-towers. The masonry walls ran inside and parallel with the original defences on the east side but outside of them on the south and west sides. The stone towers were approximately every apart. Excavations of the west gate show it was flanked by two towers and possibly had a set of iron-gates similar to a
portcullis A portcullis (from Old French ''porte coleice'', "sliding gate") is a heavy vertically-closing gate typically found in medieval fortifications, consisting of a latticed grille made of wood, metal, or a combination of the two, which slides down gr ...
, because grooves were found in the remains of the towers' footings. Archaeological examinations of the site do not reveal why Cunetio deserved so much expenditure on upgrading its defences, an act that was a rare occurrence for inland Britannia at the time, when most Roman military engineering projects were focused on the
Saxon Shore forts The Saxon Shore ( la, litus Saxonicum) was a military command of the late Roman Empire, consisting of a series of fortifications on both sides of the Channel. It was established in the late 3rd century and was led by the "Count of the Saxon Shor ...
. Two theories have been suggested: first that the town was being converted into a Legionary fortress to re-establish Roman authority in this part of the province of Britannia. Second, that the improvement work was being orchestrated by an ambitious local British governor – the type of man who would, within a generation or so, be setting himself up as a war-lord or regional chieftain. Interpretation therefore swings between the Roman Empire re-establishing its authority after various rebellions and uprisings, or Roman authority breaking down. In the 3rd century, the town was a prosperous settlement, and by the start of the 4th, it had become a hub of villas. It has also been suggested that the town was reorganised as a centre of taxation, administration, and military functions later in the 4th century AD, coinciding with the addition of the defensive stone wall. However, the
Roman withdrawal from Britain The end of Roman rule in Britain was the transition from Roman Britain to post-Roman Britain. Roman rule ended in different parts of Britain at different times, and under different circumstances. In 383, the usurper Magnus Maximus withdrew tr ...
410 caused Cunetio to rapidly decline in importance, until it was completely abandoned.


Notes


External links


Cunetio
at roman-britain.co.uk
''Time Team'' episode on Cunetio
– YouTube {{Major towns of Roman Britain Roman towns and cities in England Archaeological sites in Wiltshire Former populated places in Wiltshire