Original article can be found at:
http://www.timesandstar.co.uk/unknown/view....aspx?id=491028God of fertility turns up after 2,000 year absence
Published on 23/04/2007
Priapus GLIMPSES into what it was like to be a Roman in Tynedale nearly 2,000 years ago literally came out of the ground at Vindolanda last summer.
Archaeologists carried out their detective work at the Roman fort during the annual season of excavations and they uncovered some remarkable finds.
Evidence of serious failures in Roman building control emerged from beneath the soil and outstanding finds included a very rare legionary brooch, a fine gold ring with intaglio intact, the graphic sculpture of the fertility god Priapus, and, best of all, a complete statue base with its four line text.
Every excavation season adds details to the general history of Vindolanda – sometimes the names of inhabitants, an altar or two, or an improvement to the general plan of the site. Occasionally a major advance is made, by the discovery of more written texts, or evidence into the day-to-day correspondence between soldiers and their families. Since then, around 2,000 of these wooden notelets have turned up.
And the discoveries keep coming thick and fast.
Last season at the far western end of the site below the stone remains, the timbers from two successive workshops of early second century date were found and amongst them lay a legionary cloak brooch, with the name of the owner punched on to the clasp – one Quintus Sollonius, from the century of Cupitus.
A centurion with that rare name is known at Caerleon, the base of the Second Augusta Legion, and Sollonius was probably based at Vindolanda during the building of Hadrian’s Wall.
On the western fort wall and rampart, excavations revealed parts of the wall standing nearly 10 feet high. The inside face of the fort wall showed a bewildering series of re-builds, with some of them being exceptionally crude.
In parts the older fort wall still stood nearly ten feet high, with two or three surviving courses of the later fort wall balanced precariously on top of it.
This season, two long ‘strip houses’ will be examined on the north side of the main road leading to the west gate of the stone fort. The internal floors of those buildings will be removed and the underlying Severan fort structures will be explored.
Once they have been examined, the floors in those buildings will be removed and the trenches will be taken down into the earlier pre-Hadrianic levels of the site.
The ultimate goal is to drop the trenches into the fort ditches of the very first fort on the site, constructed c.AD85.
The 2007 Vindolanda excavations began on Sunday, April 1 and will continue through until Saturday, September 15.
Archaeologists will be working on site seven days a week, (weather permitting).
So why not come for a great day out on Hadrian’s Wall to Roman Vindolanda near Bardon Mill and the Roman Army Museum near Greenhead?
You can also soar with the eagle over Hadrian’s Wall through the Eagle’s Eye film at the Roman Army Museum – an aerial guided tour of a section of Hadrian’s Wall with a virtually reconstructed return journey.
For further details, call (01434) 344277 or visit www.vindolanda.com