Roman Altar Research Articles

Roman Britain in Colour – Roman Altars from Hadrian's Wall Reimagined

Roman Britain in Colour is the title of an intervention in the Hadrian’s Wall Gallery of the Great North Museum: Hancock. This intervention makes use of projection mapping to interpret a series of seven Roman altars; using colour and animation to enhance the visitor experience in the gallery. This paper explores the decision to use projection mapping technology against the background of increased interest and research into the use of pigmentation on Roman sculpture. It outlines some of the benefits of projection mapping for the understanding of archaeological material in museums and discusses some potential drawbacks of the technique as an interpretative tool.

O Pedrón: time and a stone in northwest Iberia

The granite block of O Pedrón, a recarved Roman altar to Neptune, is an object of veneration at the church of St. James in the town of Padrón along the Camino de Santiago in Galicia, northwest Iberia. I use this enchanting object as a vehicle for thinking about materials, assemblages, and time, engaging with ideas drawn from Bergson, Benjamin, Deleuze, and Husserl. I describe how O Pedrón has participated in events across two millennia: the Roman colonization of Iron Age Iberia; the medieval creation of the cult of Santiago; and a contemporary push for tourism. The concept of assemblage helps us visualize the sensory, emotional, political, and other dimensions connected with the stone. The emergent properties of assemblages move not only forward but backward in time, in a process characterized by Husserl and Gell as protension and retension.

Mithras in Teutoburgium

A roman altar with an inscription dedicated to Mithras was found in the area of Teutoburgium 42 years ago. Although it is part of Vukovar City Museum’s permanent display (inv. no AZ-550), until now it had never been published in the scholarly literature. In this paper the inscription will be reconstructed, analysed and interpreted for the first time. Additionally, the other, published Mithraic altar from Teutoburgium (CIMRM II, 1635) will be reconsidered. It will be concluded that both of them belonged to the same time period and that they ornated one or two unlocated temples.

Cohors I Aelia Gaesatorum in a Latin inscription found at Bologa Medieval Castle

Over the course of 2018 the extended archaeological excavations at the site of the medieval fortress of Bologa unveiled multiple areas of interest that are the target of a rehabilitation and cultural valorization process. Amid the large slabs and carved stone blocks emerged a fragment of a Roman altar, having on one of its faces a part of a Latin inscription. The fragment is most likely the lower third of the monument, featuring a clean stone workmanship.

The River Wharfe and Verbeia, Celtic Goddess

The Wharfe is a river of Yorkshire, in northern England. It was known to the Romans as 'Verbeia', also used of their fortress in what is now the town of Ilkley. Although 'Verbeia' is surely Celtic and ultimately gives the modern hydronym 'Wharfe', its meaning has been obscure. Comparison with other Celtic forms yet suggests the sense 'Powerful Striker, she who is Strong in Hitting'', with 'ver' as an intensive prefix and 'beia' related to British and Irish words for 'axe' and the like. The pagan Celts worshipped rivers as goddesses; the Wharfe is a formidable stream, liable to dangerous floods; the name hence indicates a female deity regarded with awe, whose name survives to this day on a Roman altar in Ilkley Museum.

Cartas y dibujos acerca de una inscripción romana desaparecida: el ara de Trabanca (Vilagarcía de Arousa)

Edition and study of five documents (three letters and two drawings) signed by Juan Fernandez Gil y Casal, 1909 - 1917, reveal the complete text, the physical characteristics as well as the circumstances of the discovery of a Roman altar that was found in 1890 in Trabanca da Torre (Vilagarcia de Arousa, Pontevedra), that disappeared before 1909. This early disappearance leads some researchers to question their existence, and it also explains the news that were published in the twentieth century about the altar which have been limited to tangential references or incomplete transcriptions, without any attention to the physical characteristics of the piece. The only aim of this collaboration, which excludes reviews or textual interpretations, is to present the five documents (four that are not still published and another one that has been recently published in 2012) which are preserved in Museo do Pobo Galego, Real Academia Galega and Museo de Pontevedra, documents that can serve as an indirect source for the study of Trabanca’s altar stone until its recovery as we hope.

The Cornelian Ethics of Flight and the Case of Horace

Flight is simple dramatic action, one that lends itself to any number of different plots. Its implied movement can be represented on stage or merely recounted. So common is it that the words fuite and appear in every one of Corneille's 32 plays, from as infrequently as twice to as many as 32 times. (1) The two terms belong to broad semantic network including retraite, eviter, derober, echapper, partir, quitter, abandonner, but differ in their suggestion of abrupt, precipitous movement as well as the element of fear implied. Furetiere begins his definition of with Tascher d'eviter un peril en s'en eloignant force de jambes. The next sentence, however, immediately ties the term to issues of morality: Les braves aiment mieux perir que d'une bataille. Thus common, if at times startling, action has inherent ethical ramifications. Indeed, so central is morality to flight that careful examination of the words' occurrences throughout Corneille's oeuvre allows the construction of Cornelian ethics of flight, one whose rules are applied consistently throughout his plays. I propose to develop such Cornelian ethics of flight and to examine sole, glaring exception: Horace, figure whose ambiguity has given rise to both diverse and contradictory interpretations. (2) The rules governing flight are not overly complex. Two issues are central to this ethics: gender and heroism. As we shall see, the rules are often not the same for men and for women. As far as heroism is concerned, itself gendered concept, there is deep-rooted antagonism between heroism and flight. First and foremost, it is morally unacceptable for male to flee confrontation with another male. This preeminent rule is central to any notion of heroism and concerns only men. Flight is completely dishonorable in such circumstances, (as when Phinee flees Persee in Andromede [5.5] or when Dorante hastily abandons marriage, home, and father in the action bridging Le Menteur and La Suite du Menteur). It follows logically then that one male forcing another male to flee constitutes an essentially heroic action (such as Rodrigue's prowess causing the Mores to flee in Le Cid [4.3]). In similar vein, standing one's ground and refusing to flee is coded positively (as when Polyeucte rejects Nearque's advice to flee the site of the Roman altar [Polyeucte 2.6] or when Cinna refuses Emilie's entreaties to flee Auguste's summons at the end of the first act of Cinna). Corneille's men who flee confrontation deserve to be pursued (for example, Pompee's allies, as Cesar tells Cleopatre: En quelques lieux qu'on fuie, il me faut y courir [4.3.1331]). (3) Finally, returning after fleeing (as do Prusias and Flaminius in Nicomede [5.8] and Maxime in Cinna [5.3]) makes partial amends for the original shameful flight. Second, while fuite is dishonorable, fleeing negative is coded positively. Such flight is largely, but not exclusively, female domain. Sophonisbe will do anything to fuir l'indignite of being brought to Rome as spoil of war (Sophonisbe 3.6.1088); Heraclius and Pulcherie flee a l'egal de la mort union between them which they know to be incestuous (Heraclius 1.1.76), and Camille urges the eponymous Othon to flee in order to avoid attack (4.6.1470). Alice Rathe notes an interesting all-male variant of flight from negative: Clindor in L'Illusion comique, Dorante in La Suite du Menteur, and Don Sanche in Don Sanche d'Aragon substitute fuite for parricide (Tentation 320). Whether out of anger (Clindor), revolt (Dorante), or shame (Don Sanche), the men bolt instead of acting on their feelings toward their father more directly. (4) Third, no stigma is attached to fleeing confrontation if the one who flees is woman. Cornelie flees her husband Pompee's killers, as Pompee had urged before being killed (Songe prendre la fuite afin de me venger [2.2.472]); Didyme instructs Theodore to flee the brothel (Fuyez sous mon habit, [Theodore 4. …

Cuatro altares de La Vera, Cáceres

This paper describes four Roman altars recently found in La Vera, which is the name given to the country lying between Tietar river and Sierra de Gredos, in the Spanish province of Caceres. Of the nine inscriptions, three epigraphs are dedications to local deities: Band(-) Vortiacius, a new divine couple, Ulisus and Ulisona; and Quangeius, this one being placed in fano, which is the second occurrence of that word in Spanish epigraphy. The last piece is a tombstone so dilapidated that it is difficult to tell apart even the normal features of an ancient epitaph.

El altar romano dedicado a Zeus de Velico Târnovo - Bulgaria: Reconsideración

This Roman altar, dedicated to Zeus, was found among the ruins of a Roman civil building of the Late Empire, near the Ottoman Firuz Bey Mosque on the Carévéc hill in Velico Târnovo, Bulgaria. It is dated to the second-third century CE. The relief depicted on the altar is a sophisticated combination of a stylized and schematic thunderbolt and ant. Both are forming one entity with a dual significance and associated from the mythological point of view with Zeus.

"Deis Queunur(is)": nuevo teónimo del noroeste hispano. Relectura del ara de La Vid (Pola de Gordón, León. "Hispania Citerior")

A new interpretation is put forward for the Roman altar preserved in the chapel of San Lorenzo in the locality of La Vid (Pola de Gordon, Leon) and it is proposed that the accepted theonym Deis Equeunub ( o ) be changed to Deis Queunur ( is ).

A newly-discovered roman altar from Surcin

The paper publishes the recent discovery of a Roman altar built into the Church of St Petka at Surcin, Greater Belgrade. From the palaeographic features of the inscription and the dedicant?s gentile name, the altar has been dated to the second half of the second century. Examination of the published epigraphic corpuses reveals the existence of yet another, fragmented, altar from Surcin, and the author draws attention to an error in its publication. The paper offers an overview of the portable archaeological finds from Surcin which suggest an early Roman settlement (first century) in the ager of Bassianae.

The world(s) of the cross

To fully understand the meaning of early medieval crosses, like the one at Bradbourne (Derbyshire), we have to appreciate their liturgical, apotropaic and liminal roles. With the Reformation, changes in attitudes to the power of images resulted in the destruction of such ‘monuments of superstition’. The fragments of the Bradbourne cross were ‘rediscovered’ in the late eighteenth century and, through the eyes of the antiquarian Hayman Rooke, metaphorically converted into a Roman altar. The cross‐shaft was re‐erected in the late nineteenth century, and was used by Bishop Browne as a ‘text’ to perpetuate a ‘Reformationist’ view of English history in which Roman Catholicism played no part. Bishop Browne, Hayman Rooke, the iconoclasts and the medieval parishioners of Bradbourne contextually constructed their own monument.

A New Roman Rider-Relief from Stragglethorpe, Lincolnshire

N November 1977, a large relief sculpture of Roman date was discovered during drainage work on farmland in the parish of Brant Broughton and Stragglethorpe in Lincolnshire.1 The sculpture had been unearthed by a mechanical excavator in the process of recutting the sides of a field-boundary dyke. Although it was not possible to examine the sculpture in situ, it had apparently been found lying face downwards in a shallow scoop in the subsoil below a residual east-west plough ridge of the broad ridge-and-furrow cultivation which until recently had covered the field. Apart from a fine follis of Licinius I (A.D. 308-324), the sculpture was not found in association with any other Roman material. Part of a worn and battered Roman altar and heavy concentrations of Romano-British pottery and building stone were later found after ploughing some 200oo m to the north-west, and fieldwork has located a series of such concentrations in the surrounding fields.2 Air photographs of the immediate area show an enclosurecomplex together with a pit-alignment nearby.3 Two kilometres to the west aerial photography has pin-pointed enclosures of probable Romano-British date in the parish of Beckingham and occasional finds of Roman material have been recorded over the years in Brant Broughton.4 In its wider context the settlement at Stragglethorpe lies some 20 km to the south-south-west of Lincoln, and about 12 km to the north-west of Ancaster. Smaller Roman settlements lie within io km on the lines of Ermine Street and the Foss Way.5

A Roman Altar from Kilsyth

A Roman Altar from Kilsyth

The Roman altar from Bogton, Stirlingshire

The Roman altar from Bogton, Stirlingshire

A Roman altar from Westerwood on the Antonine Wall

A Roman altar from Westerwood on the Antonine Wall

A Roman (?) Head at Dumfries

The striking and enigmatic stone head reproduced on plate IX, nos. 2, 3, and fig. 3 (p. 64), was presented to the Dumfries Burgh Museum in September, 1951, along with two Roman altars. These three objects had been preserved at Burnfoot House, Birrens, Annandale, for over a century, and had always been together within the memory of living members of the Irving family, which owned the property until 1950. One of the altars, that of Minerva, was dug up in 1810 during stone-robbing in the vicus of the Birrens Roman fort: the smaller altar, that of Fortuna, came to light on the same site in 1886. There is further a local tradition of the finding of a head, described as being that of Jupiter, at Birrens c. 1816, also in the course of stone-robbing; but no evidence exists for equating with it the head which is the subject of this note, since the provenance of the latter is not recorded.

Virginia's Great Allegory of William Pitt

HE full-length allegorical portrait of William Pitt by Charles Willson Peale is only painting that directly links colonial Virginia with American Revolution. The portrait is also Peale's first commission of public importance. And so this enormous canvas, eight feet high and five feet wide, deserves attention from all who are interested in Peale as an artist, and from all who are interested in revolutionary spirit as manifest in art. Here Earl of Chatham, statesman of Year of Wonders, silvertongued champion of British liberty, stands before us clad in a Roman Consular Habit. A cloak draped over his tunic falls to ground behind him. His sturdy, sandalled legs are bare from knee. And we find him in very act of speaking in Defence of Claims of AMERICAN Colonies, on Principles of Constitution.' His lordship has not only appeared for occasion in garb of republican Rome, but with a series of exhibits appropriate to his theme, drawn from that and other periods of history. His left hand holds Magna Charta. His right arm, extended, points to a statue of BRITISH Liberty sculptured in act of trampling underfoot petition of Stamp Act of I765. There can be no doubt of all this, as her right hand rests on British shield, her left holds a liberty cap on a pole and there at her feet paper is clearly marked Congress at New-York. Below her, in bas-relief on side of her tall pedestal we behold an American Indian, alert and watchful, bow in hand and a dog at his side. Bow and dog, we are informed, represent the natural Faithfulness and Firmness of AMERICA. In foreground of picture a Roman altar stands, its flame alight and laurel crown of civic virtue resting near flame. Carved on corners of altar and draped with sculptured laurel we see heads of Sidney, on our left, Hampden on right, and between them a banner

An Altar to the Mothers in Lund Church, near Kirkham, Lancashire

Mr. F. H. Cheetham, F.S.A., first drew my attention to the Roman altar in use as a font in Lund church, and persuaded me to write this note, the justification for which lies in the fact that the interesting reliefs on the sides have never yet been reproduced, though that on the front has been published. The back is plain, and there is no trace of any inscription.

Roman altar discovered at Colchester

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