Haltwhistle Burn, Corstopitum and the Antonine Wall: A Reconsideration

Haltwhistle Burn, Corstopitum and the Antonine Wall: A ReconsiderationAuthor(s): Grace SimpsonSource: Britannia, Vol. 5 (1974), pp. 317-339Published by: Society for the Promotion of Roman StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/525736 .

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Haltwhistle Burn, Corstopitum and the Antonine Wall: A Reconsideration

BJy GRACE SIMPSON

EVERAL publications give the impression that Roman coarse pottery in

the north is closely datable. But Hadrian's Wall and northern forts and the Antonine Wall are dated by historical records, inscriptions and structural

periods, and not by any potsherds found in their strata: it is the periods which give their context to the potsherds. The history of this old error is reviewed in two

parts: (i) the misuse, since 1930, of Gerald Simpson's work at Haltwhistle Burn fortlet; (ii) the misuse, since 1934, of the evidence for dating the great Corbridge Storehouse and the consequent misdating of Antonine pottery at Corstopitum and Mumrills.

PART I: THE FORTLETS ALONG THE STANEGATE

Hardly anything is known about the Trajanic pottery of northern Britain. No closed and dated Trajanic group has hitherto been recovered and studied.' (1953) ... C. A.D. I 20.... The date [of the emergence of Black-burnished ware] is fixed by

reference both to the Stanegate Forts . . . and also by complementary argument . . .2 (1973)

The two quotations above reflect the view which was revived in 1948 by E. Birley and J. P. Gillam, but recanted by Birley in 1964, which was invented by R. G. Collingwood about 1930, but recanted by him in 1936. This speculation has, therefore, had a series of ups and downs, but it never received support from Gibson and Simpson, the excavators of Haltwhistle Burn fortlet (FIG. I). The fortlet lies within a few yards of Agricola's road, known as the Stanegate, which runs between the late first-century forts of Carlisle, Nether Denton, Chesterholm and Corstopitum. The position is a very strong one: the ground falls away to the deep channel of the little burn on the west side and it is very steep on the south side. The Stanegate was engineered down this slope to the burn in a superb gradient, well worth study on the ground or in the sectional drawings of Gerald Simpson in the excavation report. A thousand feet away to the north are the nearest of a complex of field-works associated with what was later to be Hadrian's Wall.

'J. P. Gillam, AA4 xxxi (1953), 232. 2J. P. Gillam, 'Sources of Pottery Found on Northern Military Sites', in Current Research in Romano-

British Coarse Pottery, Council for British Archaeology (London, 1973), 54-5.

13 7



318 GRACE SIMPSON

By 1906, Francis Haverfield had completed years of study of the inscriptions and field-works of Hadrian's Wall, including excavations from 1894 which revealed a complexity in the structures even more difficult to understand than they had seemed before excavation.

From the Wall, Haverfield turned aside to Corbridge . . . At the same time as Haver- field turned away from the darkening problems of the Wall, two figures are descried in the twilight... Simpson and Gibson - there is no doubt whose was the dominant mind - were testing a new theory of selective excavation, in which problems were posed and tests devised for their solution. Haltwhistle Burn fort ... was small, well-preserved, and a quarry made by the Wall-builders had encroached upon it. All this was perceived before the site was picked for excavation.3 Gibson and Simpson stated their conclusions in 13 pages of careful discussion,

writing at the end: . . although the evidence entirely favours a pre-Hadrianic date, it seems impossible

in the present state of knowledge to determine definitely to which of the two earlier periods [late first century or Trajanic] the fort belongs.4 Two years later, at Simpson's request, these conclusions wcre re-examined by

Philip Newbold, one of Haverfield's students, in his report on the pottery found

by Simpson in several stone turrets and milecastles on the Wall, and also from another Stanegate fortlet, at Throp.5 Newbold also studied, with Donald Atkinson, another of Haverfield's students, the earliest first-century samian and coarse

pottery found at Carlisle fort between I89o0-3.6 It became clear that the fortlets lacked the earliest types of pottery but had a few links with pottery in the earliest stone structures on the Wall. Thus it became possible to re-state a pre-Hadrianic period of occupation for the two fortlets. Thereafter Newbold went to plant coffee in what is now Kenya and a few years later was killed during war-service.

The first seven years of his work, 1907-13, included demonstrations of all the features of Gerald Simpson's archaeological method. Later, in 1924, he became the founder and Director of Archaeological Research in Durham University. It was characteristic that all his life he re-tested his own findings and set other

people-such as Newbold-to test them, and was always aware that more than one interpretation of structures or other relics found in an excavation must be

sought, and given due consideration, before coming to an estimate of the likeliest

interpretation. It was because of this open-mindedness, and because his friend Haverfield had recently died, that about 1920 Simpson became a friend of R. G. Collingwood.

Collingwood was the only man left in Oxford who felt a pious obligation to

keep alive there the school of Romano-British studies in which Haverfield had

3 I. A. Richmond, 'The Rise and Progress of Archaeology in Northumbria', Durham Univ. Journ. 32 (1940), 57-8.

4 Gibson and Simpson, AA3 v (1909), 213-85. 5 F. G. Simpson, CW112 xiii (1913), 297-397- 6F. Haverfield and D. Atkinson, CW2 xvii (1916--I17), 235-50. Atkinson, the student of sigillata,

concluded 'the coarse pottery . . . is not, and indeed is never likely to be, sufficiently accurate to make evidence drawn from it of value in a question involving so short a period' [as a decade].



HALTWHISTLE BURN, CORSTOPITUM, ANTONINE WALL 319

trained him, and to make use of the specialist library left to the University, now in the Ashmolean Museum, greatly enlarged by many later benefactions. Coiling- wood was aware, as a philosopher must be-it was his profession-of other points of view. Often he was carried away by enthusiasm for asking what he thought were the right questions and searching in his mind for the right answers.7 Then he would make up his mind to accept a certain conclusion, pour it into interesting prose, and soon this was in print in the countless books and articles which flowed from his pen. But this was an entirely different approach to archaeology from Simpson's and it is not surprising that, while they were devoted friends for 20 years until Collingwood's death, as many letters which I possess written by him to my father testify, the two men were searching for totally different things in archaeology.

Referring to Haltwhistle Burn, Dr. J. C. Bruce had suggested in 1851 that Wall-builders had occupied the fortlet while they quarried the steep rock between the fort and the burn,8 and these legionaries had inscribed on the quarry-face LEG. VI. V, a clear indication that they were there no earlier than 122, the year in which that legion came to Britain. Excavation showed that their quarry-waste lay over the rampart, which had first been robbed of all the good facing-stones for use elsewhere. Gibson and Simpson examined Bruce's suggestion carefully but it hardly allowed time for building a permanent fort in stone with all the evidence it contained for a period of occupation, as their excavation had revealed. Therefore, they asked themselves, was the fortlet built by Hadrian's orders during the preliminary survey of the district? After which ' . . . It would be occupied by those employed in [Wall-]building and would naturally be dismantled as soon as Aesica was ready to receive a garrison'.

But, as their excavation had shown, this was not a temporary structure (FIG. I). The very careful construction of the foundations (most of the superstructure having been removed by the Romans), and especially the different treatment at the east and south gates because of a difference in the subsoil, the east gate being on softer ground, show nothing that can be called temporary. If it had been a temporary work it would be the only temporary stone-built fort in Roman Britain. Like the rampart wall, the buildings had stone walls, set in clay, 24 in. wide. These walls, built with clay instead of mortar, would not have been built to full height. They were low stone sills supporting timber-framed structures, like those later found in the contemporary fort at Old Church, Brampton. These are not temporary buildings: a wooden hut would have saved time and labour and could be moved easily when the site was abandoned.

Buttresses were additions to Building IV; and the little central Building VI, perhaps a combined office and commandant's quarters, had been warmed by a coal fire. A supply of coal was outside for replenishing the hearth, which was vitrified deep down in its clay structure by the heat of many fires. The gates on south and east are deeply inset, a defensive feature, and the east gate was found to be blocked by a carefully-built wall lying directly on the road-surface. The west

7 Collingwood, An Autobiography, chapters 4 and 5. 8Bruce, The Roman Wall' (1851i), 252.



320 GRACE SIMPSON

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Haltwhistle Burn: the original site plan reduced here to less than half'size. Scale 1 :882.




gate was unusually narrow, less than 5 ft. between the existing side-walls, and was simply for access to the burn for water. There was no north gate. The pivot-stone for the door at the south gate showed that the hole had originally been 24-1 in. deep but had become worn to a depth of 31 in.

If this fort was built by Hadrian's orders, wrote Gibson and Simpson, ... the power of Hadrian, though sufficient to construct a line of works over 70 miles long, was insufficient to keep open more than one main gate of a fort within his own lines. Lastly, this gate faced in a direction opposite to that in which the unfinished works [of Hadrian's Wall] lay, which it would be the duty of the garrison to protect from attack. Such evident contradictions entirely disappear when a pre- Hadrianic date is suggested, for in that case the whole purpose of the fort is altered. Instead of being a temporary habitation for the builders or guards of a structure some distance away, it becomes an isolated post, the garrison of which is intent upon the defence of its own ramparts.9 Collingwood's conclusion in The Archaeology of Roman Britain (1930), p. 67,

is a very different one. He stated concerning both Throp and Haltwhistle Burn: In both these forts the objects found were sufficient to prove that they had been occupied for a short time about the beginning of Hadrian's reign. The reader will have noticed that Gibson and Simpson did not consider the

dates of the objects found during the excavation in their summing up, for the very good reason that the site would date any objects found within. Collingwood had turned the argument upside-down and back to front. In a footnote on the same page he thanks Simpson for reading the section and for making suggestions for several improvements, but he does not say that he accepted the suggestions: indeed his preface, pp. vi-vii, shows that he was confident of his knowledge and did not ask Simpson to revise it. Similarly, in The Book of the Pilgrimage, 1-4 July 1930o, Collingwood did not consult Simpson. Instead he expounds his so-called Vallum- Stanegate frontier, a view never held by Simpson and, eventually, even Colling- wood had to abandon it. Looking at the Pilgrimage Book it appears that Collingwood had never read the Haltwhistle Burn report or had not had time to consult it while pouring out his views for the pilgrims.

Evidently by 1933 Simpson had been trying to explain to him his structural evidence, because the ninth Edition of Bruce's Handbook to the Roman Wall, which is Collingwood's edition, stated on p. 151:

Whether this fort was erected as part of the Vallum frontier system, or whether it belongs to an earlier concentration of force along the line of the Stanegate, cannot at present be decided. The reader was allowed a choice. Victory was achieved in 1936 in Roman

Britain and the English Settlements, for there Collingwood wrote: It is therefore necessary to look for a Trajanic limes elsewhere than in the Vallum; and . . . asking whether it can be . . . the Stanegate . . . On this line decorated 'samian' pottery of Trajan's reign is common. Rougher pottery, dated to the same period, has been found at Throp and Haltwhistle Burn.ro

9 Gibson and Simpson, op. cit. (note 4), 277. o R. G. Collingwood and J. N. L. Myres. Roman Britain and the English Settlements (1936), I26.



322 GRACE SIMPSON

Still he was interested in little objects, not structures, but he had recanted about both the Vallum and the date of the fortlets. The tenth edition of the Handbook was edited by Ian Richmond in 1947 and correctly stated concerning Haltwhistle Burn: 'The fort is thus taken to belong to a Trajanic concentration of force along the line of the Stanegate, before the Wall was built'. Unfortunately he added, 'The pottery proved an occupation early in the second century'. As already noted, the pottery does nothing of the sort.

The revival of Collingwood's misdating of the Stanegate fortlets seems to have been due to his one-time pupil, Eric Birley, and his pupil, J. P. Gillam. The first re-statement known to me is in 1949," but it is doubtful if my father read it. Thinking aloud amongst* colleagues was correct: rushing into print with the

speculations was not. This had been the problem with Collingwood, and, as

already noted, by 1936 that wandering sheep had entered the fold. About the same time, Birley and Sir George Macdonald were exchanging

views concerning the first Roman withdrawal from Scotland, using coins and samian pottery to support their different interpretations, although it is but rarely that either class of object (as they both must have been aware) can give an absolute rather than a relative date. The Flavian II withdrawal from Newstead, late first-century strong-point in the eastern Lowlands, was the main topic at issue, and Birley, supported by Dr. T. Davies Pryce, came nearer to the period than Macdonald. In 1947, Ian Richmond trenched at Newstead in order to tie together the information gathered by James Curle before 1911. Richmond's conclusion was that the strong-point suffered its terrible disaster about the year

Ioo.1. Dalswinton

in Dumfriesshire and Newstead were evacuated, and the Stanegate probably became the frontier road, strengthened by a series of additional forts and fortlets

supplementing the forts in occupation from the time of Agricola. This matter is related to new historical information deriving from epigraphical and prosopo- graphical studies which there is no space to discuss here.

However, in 1961, Birley was still supporting the old error concerning both

fortlets,13 as he himself recalled in an address to the Limes Congress in Germany in 1964. Having read Gibson and Simpson's report, he realized that'... its plan, without a north gateway, seems to exclude any logical connection between it and the Wall'.I4 He also noted the wear in the pivot-stone and the blocked east gate.

About 1949, Richmond had become confused about the fortlets: '. . . they were plainly not occupied for long . . .' and then he made a curious attempt to revive the notion of a Vallum-Stanegate frontier, '. .. and it is worthwhile to descend for a moment to minutiae and to point to the value of the blocking of a gate

. . . as evidence of rearward pressure . . .' hence the need for the Vallum.'s But he had forgotten to check in the report: the blocking was not at the south

gate but at the east gate. In his last two editions of the Handbook, in 1957 and 1966

I The Centenary Pilgrimage of Hadrian's Wall (I949), 6o. 12 PSAS (1949-50), 7-11, 25-6. 13 E. Birley, Research on Hadrian's Wall (1961), 144, 146. 14 E. Birley in Studien zu den Milititrgrenzen Roms (K61n 1967), 6-14. 5sJRS xl (1950), 55 and fig. 2.




(Simpson died in 1955 and Richmond died in 1965), he wrote: 'The pottery proved an occupation contemporary with the erection of the Wall. . .' and in the second edition of The Archaeology of Roman Britain (1969), repeated Collingwood's words almost unchanged (see p. 321 above).16 An explanation for this change is offered below.

No one of his generation knew better than Richmond that a blocked fort gateway was an extremely important piece of evidence in the history of a site. He was fascinated by such details, and his own style of excavation could be called an extreme refinement of Simpson's selective excavation methods in order to locate such features as the corner of a barrack-building, or perhaps a cross-wall in a granary, by careful measurement and, sure enough, there it was in his tiny trench. Simpson's trenches were bigger, and he liked to strip a big area and also to dig down to the subsoil, a descent not always attempted by Richmond. When he was not digging with Simpson he was mainly interested in obtaining the plan of a site, and he preferred a one-period site, uncomplicated by stratification, such as Fendoch fort, Hod Hill fort and Inchtuthil legionary fortress.

Richmond's fascination with excavation-technique while he was an under- graduate had drawn him in 1922 to Scarborough Castle Hill, where he watched Simpson at work and where their friendship began. It was a friendship that surmounted any misunderstandings and continued unhampered by the need for explanations. For many years they exchanged frequent letters. They laughed and talked with the same sort of eagerness which, as it seems from the writings of those who knew them, had been qualities of Haverfield and Gibson. In 1946 their work along the Solway-side had this gaiety-added to by the Rev. M. P. Charlesworth from St. John's College, Cambridge, who had come each year to talk with Simpson from about 1943. By 1949, Richmond was excavating at Solway House, his last important work on the Wall, but his interests had already turned to Hod Hill in Dorsetshire. His enormous, self-imposed work-load was mounting instead of levelling-off. This excess of work may explain the sort of hasty writing, quoted above, which is unrelated to the military situation in the early second century A.D.

As David Divine realized in his book: 'The dating... must rest upon military probabilities . . . moreover, if the fortlets were planned in conjunction with the selection of the Wall line, the siting of some of them is remarkable'.'7 Three are on the wrong side of the River Irthing and one is three-quarters of a mile from the nearest milecastle.

Professor Frere's survey of the evidence in his Britannia'8 restates Simpson's conclusion:

... the fortlets ... have no place in the earliest scheme for Hadrian's Wall and mark a time when the Stanegate itself was the frontier. . . there were signs that the occupation of the Haltwhistle Burn fortlet had not been brief.

16 Collingwood and Richmond, The Archaeology of Roman Britain (1969), 75. 1 D. Divine, The North-West Frontier of Rome, A Military Study of Hadrian's Wall (London, 1969), 162. 18 S. S. Frere, Britannia, A History of Roman Britain (London, 1967), 123. See also B. R. Hartley in

Northern History i (Leeds, 1966), 14-15.



324 GRACE SIMPSON

The pottery from the two fortlets is interesting. There are a few fragments from rustic-ware jars, the very common late first-century vessels '. . . which were still fairly common in the early second century (Throp, Haltwhistle Burn, etc.) lasting in very small quantities into the reign of Hadrian (Appletree Turret)'. Thus Collingwood in one book called the fortlets Trajanic which in an earlier chapter he miscalled Hadrianic.I9

Several kiln sites in Lincolnshire, Yorkshire and elsewhere are known to have made rustic ware. At one of them, North Hykeham in Lincolnshire, Hugh Thompson found other varieties of cooking pots which also were being produced at an early period (before A.D. I IO, he concluded).zo These other types tend to have dark grey, black or brown surfaces caused by partial reduction in the kilns. The rims curve gently outwards, with or without a raised neck below the rim,2I and some vessels have lattice decoration. Near the fort of Little Chester in Derby, a kiln

complex has produced huge quantities of wares which overlap typologically with some of those at sites like North Hykeham and continue during Trajan's principate. Maurice Brassington has drawn 308 types of Derby vessels, giving us the finest series of forms from an early kiln complex in Britain.22

Many Derby types are typologically related to the forms Gerald Simpson drew to represent 50 vessels found at Haltwhistle Burn and about 45 found at

Throp (such as the carinated bowls, wide-mouthed jars, jugs, flanged bowls and

cooking pots), though the fabrics differ. Such types have long been recognized as

being Trajanic at the fort of Gelligaer in Glamorgan, built during Trajan's principate as recorded on inscriptions over the gateways. My father observed the

relationships between Gelligaer and Haltwhistle Burn pottery and recorded them in his report.

It is not at all clear why Gillam wrote the words quoted at the beginning of this paper, or why he dated Throp from 122 to 126 and Haltwhistle Burn from 122 to 128 in the first two editions of his Types of Roman Coarse Pottery Vessels.23 In the third edition, in 1970, the year 122 for each has been changed to 105 without explanation, and that could still be five years too late. Concerning the dates 126 and 128, which are halfway through Hadrian's principate, it must be

re-emphasized that there is no evidence for taking either fortlet into even the

beginning of the Wall-building period because if so that east gate would have been unblocked immediately to facilitate access to the Wall.

If that conclusion by Gibson and Simpson is reasonable and probable, then Black-burnished cooking pots found in the fortlets are part of the Trajanic ceramic

assemblage. Later, these types were to become common during Hadrian's principate, but they are recognizable in other Trajanic assemblages, for example, in the

19 The Archaeology of Roman Britain (I930), 232, type 61. referring to Throp pl. 26, 8, and Haltwhistle Burn pl. v. 12.

20 F. H. Thompson, Antiq. Journ. xxxviii (1958), 15-51. Limestone Corner, Milecastle 30, should be added to the distribution list for rustic ware compiled by Mr. Thompson, see Newbold, AA3 ix (1913), 67.

21 For such rim-sections at Throp, pl. 26, 9-12, and at Haltwhistle Burn, pl. v. 14-17, 20o. 2 M. Brassington, 'A Trajanic Kiln Complex near Little Chester, Derby, 1968'. Antiq. Journ. li (1971).

36-69. 23 AA4 xxxv (957). 180-25I, re-issued I968, I970.




Derby kilns. Mr. Brassington informs me that Black-burnished ware (BB I) found since 1968 will be analysed in order to determine whether it was actually made there.

However, Gillam dated most of the cooking pots in the fortlets after 120, 125 or 130, including some of the early partially-reduced types with curved rims and the Black-burnished wares.

TABLE I

Gilliam type Found Starting Starting (Editions I and 2) (Edition 3)

I15 T and HB 120 130

I I7 HB 125 130

I19 T (BB I) 125 120 122 HB (BB I) 125 120

125 T and HB (BB I) 125 120

The date at which Black-burnished ware is thought by Gillam to have reached the north and Hadrian's Wall is, at present, c. 120, as in the second quotation on p. 317 above; and he continued: 'The date is one of the most secure in the history of Roman pottery in Britain'.24 It is not clear what he means by that when only a few years before he was dating the arrival of BB I ware to c. 125. Such a change, with or without an explanation, should raise the question whether coarse pottery can possibly be used in this manner. An absolute date like 120 or 125, even as a terminus post quem, cannot be given to a cooking pot. Gillam appears to be confusing absolute and relative chronologies. There is no absolute certainty about the year of the beginning of Wall-building, although this is generally supposed to have been 122, the year of Hadrian's visit to Britain, and the Augustan Histories add that he was the first to build a wall in Britain 8o miles long.

Returning to the Stanegate frontier, Nether Denton was the next fort to interest Simpson and Newboldzs because of the series of over 70 coins ending with some of Trajan, and some late 'transitional' South Gaulish sigillata together with some of the earliest kind to be found in Britain of Central Gaulish sigillata. Such styles are now known to have been made at Les Martres-de-Veyre.26 The potters who worked at Lezouz were the main, but by no means the only, samian potters to supply Hadrian's Wall in Hadrianic times. The products of potters like Cocatus, whose name is better read as Igocatus, who worked at Les Martres, do not date the sites along the Stanegate, as I emphasized in my book,27 because it is the distribution of such products which dates them. They are common in England and

24 Op. cit. (note 2), 54-5. 25 Simpson, CW2 xiii (1913), 385, pl. 28 and fig. 40. Fig. 40 is also illustrated by J. A. Stanfield and

Grace Simpson in Central Gaulish Potters (1958), pl. 39, 454. This is the style of Potter P-io, as defined by G. B. Rogers in a forthcoming supplement to Gallia, No. xxviii. For another sherd in the style of P-io see Stanfield and Simpson, pl. 39, 456. These are the only examples of the style known in Britain: both are in Trajanic contexts and come from Stanegate forts, Corbridge and Nether Denton.

26J. R. Terrisse, 'Ceramiques Sigilldes gallo-romaines des Martres-de-Veyre (Puy-de-D6me)', Supple- ment xix a Gallia, 1968.

27 Grace Simpson, Britons and the Roman Army (London, I964). 62-3.

22



326 GRACE SIMPSON

Wales as far north as the Stanegate line, and only two sherds are known in Scotland, at Newstead and Dalswinton, already mentioned, and only two are known on Hadrian's Wall.

More than 50 bowls in the Les Martres styles have been found in Stanegate forts. Four tiny sherds found at Throp are not attributable to individual potters' styles, but three are certainly of this early type, and the fourth is probably earlier, for it looks like late first-century South Gaulish sigillata. The Central Gaulish

styles belong to c. 100oo-120, the early second century. Simpson was unable to excavate at Nether Denton until 1933. The hill-top

is covered by the graveyard, a farm and the rectory, but in the field south of the church, in trenches restricted by the roadway leading up to the graveyard gate, he found morticed timbers above what seemed to be ditch filling. The soft, dark earth contained 'pre-Hadrianic coarse wares and large flat-rimmed mortars of soft

yellow clay'. Twelve yards to the north there was a turf rampart 30 ft. thick at the base and still standing 5 ft. high. Such a massive defence, when related to the earlier chance discoveries, indicated that a cohort fort had been there.28z

Thereafter Simpson searched for a system of large forts and small fortlets and found confirmation that very same year following one of his many lunchtime visits to Boothby. Search on the ground westwards from Nether Denton had been

unproductive, but an estate map in the house at Boothby showed that a nearby field was called Castle Hill. His long trench disclosed a ditch 17 ft. wide and 5-6 ft.

deep (with a decayed late South Gaulish Dr. 37 at the bottom), and behind it the remains of a beaten clay rampart. There is only room for a fortlet on the tiny hill-top, but the position is very strong by the edge of a ravine and within sight of Nether Denton fort.29

In 1934 the search continued for the next cohort fort, and this was located

by Ian Richmond and R. P. Wright. It was excavated in the autumn by Simpson, who took the photographs, and Richmond, who drew the plan. The buildings were of stone, with clay instead of mortar, and Richmond told me that Simpson had said to him, 'This is what I found at Haltwhistle Burn'. This fort, at Old

Church, Brampton, is very strongly defended on the north side by a cliff edge above the River Irthing. The via principalis runs to the east gate, from which the

Stanegate is reached by a magnificent cutting which eased the descent down the hill. The size of the fort including the ramparts is 3-7 acres.30

There should be a fortlet at High Crosby, but the hill-top is covered by farm-

buildings. The probable scheme from Carlisle to Corbridge is listed in Birley'31 and in Collingwood and Richmond,32 but both these lists unfortunately include irre- levant information about sites on Hadrian's Wall. Stanegate sites in these lists, but not mentioned in this article, and a few possible additions west from Carlisle and east from Corbridge, have all still to be tested and proved by excavation.

28 CW2 xxxiv (x1934), 152-4. 29 Ibid., 154-5- 30 CW2 xxxvi (1936), 172-82. 31 Birley, op. cit. (note 13) fig. 2. 32 The Archaeology of Roman Britain (2nd ed., 1969), 75.




The fort at Old Church, like Haltwhistle Burn, had been demolished by the Romans down to the foundations. The gate-timbers had been pulled out without

destroying the runways down which the posts had originally been slid into position. The 'handful' of pottery was strikingly like that from the fortlets at Throp and Haltwhistle Burn. Since then about 8oo potsherds have been excavated by Robert Hogg at a kiln-works three-quarters of a mile from Old Church.33 The quality of the pottery is very poor, especially the cooking pots in grey ware, although the mortaria and reeded rim bowls are slightly better. Apart from the two pottery-kilns, the works-depot made tiles, presumably for roofing fort buildings. In the tile works a hoard of scrap iron had been buried in a pit (not a well) when the site was being abandoned.34 Mr. Hogg considers that the kilns were used for only a short period, which should be at the time the fort was being built about the beginning of the second century. However, the dating of the pottery by Gillam placed them within the period 100-25, and the date 125 (at the time of the publication of the kilns) was probably associated with his conviction that Black-burnished ware arrived in the north in that year: there is not a single sherd of it amongst the Brampton kiln sherds.

In conclusion, this review has drawn attention to the military importance of the Stanegate fortlets which, together with structural evidence, indicates the period of their occupation and of the pottery found in them. The misunderstanding of this archaeological and historical evidence by several writers recalls a remark made by Simpson about another of his reports which did not seem to have been read, that 'when the criticisms were considered, the reports of what had been done might not have been written'.

PART II: CORSTOPITUM

In the recent publication already mentioned, readers are informed that The destruction of Hadrian's wall in c. A.D. 18o, and of many forts and settlements in its vicinity, provides a valuable datum for pottery.35 This implies that the date of the destruction is proved and settled, but this is

far from being the case. Since 1966, when B. R. Hartley raised it (see note 45), the question of when Hadrian's Wall was first destroyed.has again become a subject for debate. That is excellent if the discussion is based on historical and epigraphical grounds with a clear understanding of the fact that no new information of this kind has been found since 1929. Even numismatic grounds are possible, as when Gerald Simpson wrote in the Poltross Burn Milecastle Report, 1911, '. . . three burnt coins of Faustina the Elder suggest that the great invasion of 18o A.D. was the occasion for the first destruction'.36 But that was only a suggestion. Collingwood was at pains, in 1923, to emphasize that it was only a hypothesis when he supposed that the words of Cassius Dio meant that both the Antonine and Hadrian's Walls were

33R. Hogg, CW2 lxv (1965), I6i1-8. 34 W. H. Manning, CW2 lxvi (1966), 1-36. The information about the location of the iron is incorrect in this report. Mr. Hogg informs me that it was in a pit, an analogy being the Inchtuthil nail deposit.

3s Gillam, op. cit. (note 2), 59. 36 CW2 xi (1911), 46o.



328 GRACE SIMPSON

damaged about 1i8o. His argument was designed to suggest, since Simpson had proved eight years previously that the stone wall between Tyne and Solway was Hadrianic, that therefore Severus, who was credited by several ancient writers with having built a wall across Britain, had not even been the repairer of it. The repairs, continued Collingwood, might all have been done before his principate began in 193.37

In 1923 it was possible to argue thus because no inscription mentioning Severus was known to have been found on the Wall. Actually three fragments of such a stone had been found at Chesters Fort between 1870 and 1886, but they were not associated until 1938 when Eric Birley interpreted them.3 But, in 1929, an inscription belonging to the years 205-8 was discovered at Birdoswald Fort during the excavations directed by Simpson with (in modern parlance) Richmond as site-supervisor and Birley as finds-supervisor.39 Only a few months later, Collingwood4o and Birley 4, noted that in 197 there had been another barbarian inroad. Collingwood made the point that systematic destruction of the kind noted by Simpson at various places42 could not have been carried out under siege conditions, and that it was easier to attribute the damage to 197, when presumably most of the army of Britain was in Gaul with Clodius Albinus, than to c. 18o.

Birley discussed the work of two governors of Britain, Virius Lupus from 197 and Alfenus Senecio from 205-8. Thirty years later A. R. Birley restated the hypothesis, with more historical detail, coupled with the new suggestion that there might have been damage c. i8o, and in 196-7 and c. 207.43 This third date takes account of Herodian's comments and explains why Severus came to Britain in 208; and Frere has drawn attention to some interesting numismatic records of the activities of Severus in Britain.44 No inscriptions of Virius Lupus have yet been noted on the Wall, but there is a fragmentary dedication at Corstopitum, and at any time something may be found connecting him with Wall-building. Mean- while there appears to be a gap of eight years between damage in 197 and

rebuilding c. 205. This gap caused B. R. Hartley's query and re-started the whole

enquiry.45 Returning to the statement that Hadrian's Wall was destroyed c. i 8o, the

main evidence in its support seems to come from a small excavation in 1972 at Rudchester Fort:

. . an original barrack.. . with timber partitions . . . was burnt down after c. 170 (on the evidence of mid-Antonine samian) and rebuilt in stone on the original plan.46

37JRS xiii (1923), 69-8I. 38AA4 xvi (1939), 240-3. 39 CW2 xxx (1930), 198-202; RIB 1909, and see RIB 1337 from Benwell. 40 The Archaeology of Roman Britain (I 930), 85. 4 AA4 vii (1930), 164-9. 42CW2 xiii (1913), 321-2. 43 AA4 1 (1972), 'Virius Lupus', 179-89- 44Frere, op. cit. (note 18), 173-6. 4s Hartley in Northern History i (1966), 7-20; Hartley in Soldier and Civilian in Roman Torkshire (I97I),

55-69. 46Britannia iv (1973), 276.




Concerning the mid-Antonine samian, the interim report is more explicit: The latest piece of burnt decorated samian was in the style of Albucius of Central Gaul, a mid-Antonine potter.47 It is of little importance that the sherd was burnt. Burnt or unburnt, a sherd

can only indicate in a very general way (precision being impossible with potsherds) when the deposit might have been formed. The interim report adds that 'no artifact of later date of emergence was found at this level'. What was the period of Albucius's emergence? One suggestion was c. 150-90,48 but c. 140 is possible because of style and detail which he shares with the early Cinnamus style.49 But how can anyone be certain that nothing else in that deposit 'emerged' after 140 or 150? The sherd of Albucius's style can indicate that the destruction was not earlier than some time in the early Antonine period when that potter was beginning his export of bowls to Britain. But it is of no use for dating a destruction c. 180 or at any later time, and two learned archaeological journals should not be expected to publish dates 'confidently adduced as convincing proof... which may sometimes deceive the very elect.'so

The continuing discussion about the end of Wall Period I is welcome, but why is a burnt barrack enough to signify c. 18o ? Burnt levels have been found at Corstopitum for many years.

The legionary storehouse (FIG. 2)

Two burnt levels passed over the top of the unfinished storehouse, Site XI, as the excavators saw and recorded in their reports for 1908, 19Io and 191

j.s51 Using the coin evidence stratified in several layers inside the rooms, and from their observations of three floor levels, they all agreed '.. . on the cumulative evidence' . . that it was built 'about the middle of the second century, and on the strength

of a coin of Pius found in the chippings of the original floor of west [room] 2 to a date after, but not long after, 14o'.5z

All the cumulative evidence was ignored when work resumed in 1934 for, as Birley recalled in 1959, in his presidential address:

. .. Haverfield and his colleagues [assigned] the principal buildings - intuitively rather than on solid evidence - to the early years of Antoninus Pius: and retention of that dating would have compelled us to assume that Corstopitum escaped one or other of the destructions which overwhelmed the Wall at the end of the second century ... 53 The burnt level a few inches above the storehouse walls was thus ignored,

and also the fact that the early excavators found earlier stone granaries below the visible ones. Birley, apropos of Haverfield and his colleagues, spoke of 'their assumptions as to the date of the building and its subsequent vicissitudes, which

47 AAs i (I973), 82. 48 Stanfield and Simpson, op. cit. (note 25), 217. 49 Simpson and Rogers, Gallia xxvii (1969), i i; AA4 xlix (197i), 1U2, n.9. so Sir G. Macdonald, 'The dating value of samian ware', JRS xxv (1935), 192.

s1 AA3 v (1909), 325-42; vii (191ii), 145-65; viii (1912), 161-5. sz52AA3 vii (1911), 165-. 53 AA4 xxxvii (1I959), 19.



330 GRACE SIMPSON

later discoveries have shown to be unjustified'. That is incorrect. Misinterpretations of the original reports make plain, and a few are noted below, that the work of Haverfield and Forster was scoffed at for many years. Not until about 1969 did the excavators express their hesitant realization that something was wrong with their own chronology. There have been excavations from 1936 in Site XI and no coins found there have been published, although Percy Hedley identified coins with unfailing zeal. No use seems to have been made of his work.

The great storehouse was linked by Richmond to the Severan compounds across the street to the south of it (FIG. 2) because of the same kind of mason's

chippings, already mentioned, which he found in a road level. However, the connection with the compound wall was not excavated and the actual relationship seems to have been missed. That road level belongs to an earlier period. In the same report he wrote:

The date of this important work is supplied by the useful series of coins from the storehouse (room 7 and room io) which take it down to Carausius [287-93] and back to Julia Mamaea [222-35].54

But he cannot have read the whole report and appears to have relied on what

Birley told him. The coin ofJulia Mamaea helped to date the re-occupation in the third century (see Craster, p. 165),55 and on the original floor, below that ofJulia, were several coins closing with a denarius of Antoninus Pius (ibid., p. 154) which form a terminus post quem. The coin of Carausius was high above a mass of debris and just below the floor of the fourth-century structure. The original floor of mason's chippings was not always found, but when seen it was 'just below the top of the footings' as in Room 6 (ibid., p. 15I).-

Similar evidence was found in the east range (ibid., 159) with a series of coins

ending with one of Lucius Verus in an occupation above the original floor. This coin ofVerus, a denarius of 164, with other evidence, suggested that the first occupation over the storehouse chippings was not late in the second century. A second burnt layer was 18 in. higher and clearly belonged to a much later period. In the

1912 report, Bushe-Fox, relying on pottery dating, misunderstood the period of the second burning (ibid., p. 162).

This uppermost burnt layer crossed over the west range about 4 ft. below the

ground-surface of 1908 and the other burnt layer was about a foot lower. Each was

2-3 in. thick and contained much burnt wood. The lower burnt layer was only a few inches above the masonry. Above both burnt layers a late fourth-century floor was found in nearly every room of the west range at an average height of 2 - ft. above the original floor. The 1908 report described the strata in each room.

The evidence for periods later than the storehouse was swept away entirely by Sir Charles Peers, Chief Inspector of Ancient Monuments, in order to obtain a flat lawn, easy to keep tidy. No record of what was found seems to have been

made, except for a gold finger ring, see below p. 336. However, that does not explain why Gillam stated that the builders of the

54AA4 xv (1938), 252, fig.- 3; and compare his p. 264 with AA3 viii (1912), 165, re-paged as 29. 5s 1911 Report, with comments by H. H. E. Craster on the coins.



CORSTOPITUM (CCPBIDG") GENERAL PLAN

.. W.H KNOWLES. F5A.MEN5 ET DEL. MAY

.915..- SCALE

OP.FEET.

MAI-.

.

.

. "

-

- - -. . . .-.

"

AuI WALLS " \ o , E FOUNDATIONS.

Go ml oUBwEQUNT TO ADJACENT

FIG. 2

Corbridge: the central area, 1913: from Northumberland County History x (1914), pl. viii. (same size).

H

H

cT

:z

H

0

H 0

z



332 GRACE SIMPSON

storehouse removed large quantities of earlier 'occupation material and subsoil'.56 Earlier buildings of three periods have been found from 1957 in the northern half of the site, where, Gillam stated, the builders had removed the stratigraphic record. These three early periods are illustrated in Current Archaeology, July 1969, 98-1oo, without explanation there or anywhere else so far. A huge mass of pottery used for levelling up the site was found in 1957-8 by Birley in the north-east corner of the storehouse: '... the clay and cobble foundations of the north range had been raised up as it were on an embankment'.57 Birley arbitrarily dated the deposit to the late second century to fit his Severan dating for the storehouse, although it contained a number of Hadrianic-Antonine type cooking-pots. Such pottery would be appropriate for a deposit up to 163, which year, I suggest, was the probable time of the building (see below p. 333). The coarse pottery under the north-east corner ought to match the material in the west ditch deposit at Mumrills, and it deserves to be fully studied in the Department of Archaeology at Durham University (to which it was taken in 1958) and published. Much pottery was also found in 1913 lying over the walls at the north-east corner, and it was described as an extensive rubbish-dump.s8 This later deposit needs to be distinguished from the pottery under the corner. Birley does not state in his report if any of the seven sherds of decorated samian pottery which are illustrated were found below the corner.

In 1971, Gillam stated that the early excavators had dated the building in the south-east corner of the courtyard as 'a late building', with masonry 'typically Theodosian', he wrote.59 This is incorrect: the courtyard house, as the excavators called it (it is the commandant's house of the Antonine fort), was seen to be later than a Trajanic rubbish pit and earlier than the storehouse because its eastern walls were removed for the foundations. Gillam meant, it seems, the late building which the early excavators found high up over the southern rooms in the east

range in 191o. Its walls are marked on Knowles's beautiful, accurate site plan for

1910. These late walls and floors were all removed during Sir Charles Peers's clearance, already mentioned.

In the south-west corner of the courtyard, and under the west range, the early excavators found the building which Richmond in 1948 cleverly identified as the sacellum of the Trajanic fort, incorporated into the Antonine I principia. They found, in 1908, that it was older than the storehouse, but that at a later time, much later

they supposed, an industrial occupation was associated with the very rough additional walls. Richmond found no soil between the principia floors and the additions and therefore thought that the additions belonged to an Antonine II

period which was earlier than the Severan storehouse.60 A third possibility is that the rough additions were temporary structures of the legionary builders of the storehouse of 163 for the purpose of mending stonemasons' tools.

56 AA4 xlix (i97I), 1-2. 57 AA4 xxxvii (959), 20-31. It should be noted that on p. 17 Birley suggested that the extra-solid

foundations at the two northern corners were for a projected basilica, but it is much more likely that they were necessary because of the made-up ground.

8 AA3 xi (1914), 297. 59 Op. cit. (note 56), 22. 6oAA3 vii (1911), 162-3, referring to v (1909), 338-42; AA4 xxx (1952), 243-51.




Perhaps the worst remarks about Haverfield, Forster and the very distinguished architect Knowles61 came from the ebullient first excavator (later Sir

Leonard) Woolley. He was (it was not unusual at the time) without experience, but he admitted to learning much from Knowles. Woolley's hazy recollections, jotted down nearly 50 years later, are a travesty of the facts.62 Haverfield did not 'consent to supervise because he was taking a holiday on the Roman Wall': he was the prime mover,63 and amongst his numerous contributions to the work were his many Oxford students who

. . enabled us to issue our annual reports - always a difficulty to excavators - with some sort of fullness as well as punctuality.63 Birley explained in 1959 that an annual report was no longer necessary (there

had not been one since 1955), and in 1971 Gillam wrote, 'it has not proved possible to publish interim reports'. Even the two or three sentences in the Journal of Roman Studies and Britannia are absent from the annual volumes for 1964 and 1967-71.

Returning to the great storehouse, its magnificent embossed masonry with the boldly curved torus moulding is legionary work of the best quality. The highest part is the west wall, left unfinished at the third course, and it is possible to see just where the masons left it. One or two stones are not yet properly in position, and on one or two the embossing is only partially complete. 'A considerable number of stone-dressing tools were found close to various parts of the building', wrote Forster,64 and photographs show heaps of partially prepared blocks scattered in the interior ready to be lifted into place for final dressing. One huge stone, lying in the entrance, blocked easy access until covered by a very late roadway below which it was found in 1910.65

The legionary craftsmen downed tools, and the urgency was so great that they did not bother to collect the tools but hurried off, never to return. What was the crisis that such a scene can explain? The second destruction of the Antonine Wall, as complete as the first destruction about 155, could explain the sudden call to arms, and also the abrupt end to what was to have been a most important building. It might have happened in 18o, or the call to the legionaries to march northwards may have come soon after the great inscription of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus was put up between the autumn and 9 December 163.66 This fine tablet was carved for a vexillation from the Twentieth Legion under Calpurnius Agricola as governor of Britain. Its broken fragments were found in many parts of Cor- stopitum, and Hedley observed its left top corner re-used in a Corbridge building.

The second inscription which mentions Calpurnius Agricola was dedicated to Sol Invictus by a vexillation from the Sixth Legion. It is undated. Richmond noticed that it bears the hands of what would be flying Victories which had flanked

61 Obituary in AA4 xxi (i943), 248-53. 62 C. L. Woolley, Spadework: Adventures in Archaeology (London, 1953), chapter I. 63 AA3 iii (1907), p. xiv, concerning the section on Corbridge for the Northumberland County History. 64Proc. Soc. Antiq. London xxxiii (i0911), 477-8. 6s AA3 vii (1911), 149, fig.- 3- 66 W. Bulmer, AA4 xxi (i943), 239-47, correcting AA4 xv (1938), 285; RIB 1149.



334 GRACE SIMPSON

the inscription on separate panels. This observation is in Richmond's finest contri- bution to Corstopitum studies: his controlled imagination combined with his knowledge of the Roman Empire and its military and religious customs worked on fragments of sculpture and the foundations of a series of temples belonging to different deities.67 He observed that the three panels would be about ii ft. long and that a shrine of a size big enough to take them would not be insignificant. No such shrine is known. The two Victories are lost, but the inscription is complete and was re-used in the late fourth-century road outside the storehouse. Perhaps it lay face downwards for 200 years somewhere in the courtyard; but when the desecration of the first line was carried out is a mystery and the attempt was given up in the last few letters. Richmond recorded, and it deserves repetition here, that an old man told William Bulmer that on the day this stone was found he had seen Professor Haverfield dance a horn-pipe to the stone in the morning and pray to it all the afternoon. We may be sure that he was kneeling in order to make the

transcription. When the legionary vexillations were called away, they had been clearing and

altering the whole area of the Antonine fort. Outside the fort, to the west, a series of excellent drains was laid out, and drains go in before a building goes up: the

legionaries were called away before the buildings themselves had been started. In the fourth century, very rough buildings, Sites 26-37, were laid over the drains (see FIG. 2).

One officer buried his 16o gold coins in a little bronze jug by a newly-laid gravel road, and thus he was responsible for the most remarkable find, among so

many, at Corstopitum. This hoard of gold has received no attention in any recent

report. However, he could not carry such a weight of gold to war. Haverfield

pointed out that '. . . about A.D. iGO . . . I6o gold coins were not in those days easily got together'. Only a legionary (or someone more senior) could have had so much money. The detailed study of these beautiful coins by Craster showed that the hoard closed after 158.68 Dr. Sutherland advanced this dating to 159-6o by the TR. POT. XXII on the latest coin in this hoard, 'unique for the first two centuries of Roman rule in Britain'.69

The little jug was 6 in. high and 4- in. at its greatest diameter. Two worn bronze coins of Trajan and Hadrian closed the round mouth surrounded by a wide

lip, and a cover of some lost perishable material protected its contents, for a little bronze collar hangs loose about the jug-neck. This collar identifies it as the 'unbekannt gallo-r6mische Bronzekanne' drawn by Professor Eggers,70 but he has not given it the correct body-profile (see FIG. 3). The stone reliefs inside the

Simpelveld sarcophagus7I of the second century show an exactly similar jug next

67AA4 xxi (1943), I27-224, 'Roman Legionaries at Corbridge, their Supply-Base, Temples and

Religious Cults'. 68Proc. Soc. Antiq. London xxiv, 272; AA3 viii (1912), 210-34, pls. xiii-xx; for a reconsideration of the

Rudchester and South Shields gold hoards see J. H. Corbitt, AA4 xxxviii (1960), 114-17. 69 C. H. V. Sutherland, Coinage and Currency in Roman Britain (Oxford, 1937), 29. 70 H. J. Eggers, 'R6mische Bronzegefisse in Britannien', Jahrb. des R6m.-Germ. Zentralmuseums, Mainz,

13 (1966), 1io, Abb. 63, 88. 71 J. H. Holwerda, Oudheidkundige Mededeelingen van het Rijksmuseum van Oudheden te Leiden, xii (1931),

Supplement, 27-48, fig. 18b.




__-~ )C'C

FIG. 3 The bronze jug (right) which held the hoard of coins at Corbridge (copied from a photograph), c. 4.

Inset (left), jug in relief on the simpelveld sarcophagus.

to the three-legged table, and this type is slightly earlier than Eggers' type 128a7z and earlier than the two jugs now at Nijmegen.73 The Bartlow Barrows contained a very similar jug of the late first to second

centuries.y4 Therefore the Corstopitum

jug need be no later than about 16o, and the hoard could have been buried soon after its accumulation of coinage ceased. This hoard of gold was found on Site 29, between what were the recently filled up west outer and inner fort ditches, just north of what had been the west fort gate.75s The jug was only a foot below the 191 I ground-level because ioo years earlier that field was levelled for agricultural purposes and many antiquities were found at the time.76

The position of the west outer ditch is roughly indicated by subsidence and 'made-up ground', i.e. ditch filling, recorded in 191i1 below Sites XXXV and XXXVI north of the main street and below XXVIII and XXX south of it. Bushe-Fox's excellent study of the quantities of Antonine pottery found in the outer ditch-he thought they were in pits-included samian bowls by Cinnamus and Divixtus and coins not later than Antoninus Pius. Probably the pottery is all earlier than the site clearance in 163.

72 Eggers, Der rimische Import im freien Germanien (Hamburg, 1951). 73 Maria H. P. den Boersterd, The Bronze Vessels in the Rijksmuseum G. M. Kam at Nijmegen (1956), 70o-1, 257-8.

74J. Gage, Archaeologia xxvi (1836), 303, pl. 33, 3. 7s I. A. Richmond, AA4 xxxvii (I959), 78-84, found in 1953. 76 Sir George Macdonald, JRS ii (0912), 3.



336 GRACE SIMPSON

Gillam identified the position of the west inner ditch, 'Pit 5' in the 1907 report.77 Various objects were found in the six genuine rubbish pits dug just to the west, between the fort ditches, as Gillam observed. If the six pits were a contem-

porary tidying of the area in 163, then the Hunt Cup from Pit 378 would be

contemporary with the Hunt Cup fragments from Mumrills west ditch and, together, they would be the earliest known datable fragments in northern Britain. This would accord with Gillam's recent comment concerning the Mumrills sherds.79

The Simpelveld sarcophagus provides another link with Corstopitum: a gold openwork finger-ring. A similar ring was found in 1935 in the north-east corner of the storehouse during the levelling for the lawn, and in 1840 a man plucking turnips found another in the field where the gold coins were hidden. The inscriptions on the Corstopitum rings show that they are betrothal or wedding rings. They have been variously dated, but the rings from Herstal and the Tirlemont Barrows in Belgium, and from Simpelveld in Holland, are pagan, not Christian, and not later than about the middle of the second century.8so

The second destruction of the Antonine Wall has also been variously dated. The most recently published material bearing on the question was found in the outermost west ditch at Mumrills Fort between 1958 and 1960.sI In his report, Kenneth Steer included three specialist reports: two dated the samian pottery and the mortaria not later than about I6o and the third dated the coarse pottery to about 170/85. Steer inclined towards the later dating but, since then, Brian

Hartley's exhaustive study of the potters' stamps, plain and decorated samian

pottery, found everywhere in Scotland, has re-emphasized his conclusions: that the final Mumrills occupation ended before about 165, together with that of all the other Antonine Wall forts. The coarse pottery from the Mumrills ditch is discussed below (p. 337)-

The first destruction of the Antonine Wall probably followed a rebellion in

Brigantia about 155.

Scotland was re-occupied from or after 158. For several years the Scottish frontier was in the process of being rebuilt, and the urgency and

pressure on the army's manpower was such that auxiliaries, not legionaries, rebuilt the forts at Rough Castle, Castlecary and Bar Hill. It is more important that the forts were rebuilt for Antoninus Pius, that is, before 16I61, in which year the emperor died. The second occupation was a short one.82sz There was a sudden crisis, while far away at Corstopitum the site had been cleared and the building of the storehouse had been begun for a base to support the restored Scottish frontier. Hadrian's Wall had been re-occupied from about 158: the year is attested by an inscription of the Sixth Legion, presumably at work on repairs.

77J. P. Gillam, AA4 xxx (1952), 251-66; Bushe-Fox in AA3 viii (1912), 145, 169-85, 192-7. 78 Gillam, ibid., 262, fig. 4, 18. 79

Op. cit. (note 2), 1973, 56-7. For earlier Hunt cups, see Frere, Verulamium Excavations i (1972), fig. -122,

791-2, 794- soJ. D. Cowen, AA4 xxvi, 1948, 139-42, with references. s8 PSAS xciv (1960-I), 86-130. 82 Ibid., 92; similar evidence was found at Newstead by Richmond, PSAS lxxxiv (1949-50), 25-



HALTWHISTLE BURN, CORSTOPITUM, ANTONINE WALL 337 Within the five years, from 158-63, may be the slight overlap period shown

to be possible by Hartley's study of the samian pottery.83 He has already been misquoted several times as saying that the two Walls were never held together. He wrote '. . . most unlikely . . . for anything more than the briefest period'.

At Corstopitum, after the abrupt departure of the legionary vexillations, the site was not disturbed even in order to remove their tools. In a short time the growth of weeds and long grass had hidden them. Some years later, timber buildings were placed over parts of the storehouse foundations. The burnt remains of these timbers, from a destruction in the later second century, formed a layer a few inches thick.

This raises again the question i8o or 197 ? Hartley's study suggested i8o for the lowland Scottish forts at Newstead and Cappuck, and presumably also High Rochester and Risingham in Northumberland, where outposts occupied by Romans could be reached in 180 by crossing the old barrier of the Antonine Wall. This would leave Hadrian's Wall unscathed and garrisoned in 18o, to fall in 197 while its men were in Gaul.84

The coarse pottery from the Mumrills ditch, and from below the north-east corner of the great storehouse, has already been mentioned (p. 332). In particular, Black-burnished type I cooking-pots of the kind which used to be dated Hadrianic- Antonine have been found in both deposits.

In contrast to these two groups, the burnt pottery store, Site IV at Corstopi- tum, held a deposit of the late second century. A fourth-century coin-hoard was intruded, but the rows of broken vessels lay buried in the burnt remains of shelving and roof timbers. The floor contained a coin each of Antoninus Pius and Faustina II.85 Both coins were embedded in a clay floor more than 12 in. thick. The sestertius of Faustina II is earlier than 161, and is a very rare issue. The plain samian potters' stamps '. . . are consistently late Antonine', noted Hartley.86 He had not seen them, and I also was unable to find them in the Corstopitum collection, but their late period of production is reasonably certain.

The masses of pottery found in 1947 north of the two stone granaries were

re-imported, probably from rubbish dumps outside the fort. Gillam observed that they were

.. . not lying where they had been abandoned... those who reconstructed the site early in the third century had used this mass of earth and rubbish. . . as packing below the new structures. They were levelling up this part of the site.87 A flagged floor, which is not datable, sealed most of the pottery. Gillam

assumed that the floor was Severan. It had not been disturbed subsequently. Four-fifths of the 4,300 sherds counted by Gillam were coarse pottery out of

which he was able to publish a series of 93 vessels. The remaining one-fifth consisted 83 B. R. Hartley, 'The Roman Occupation of Scotland: the Evidence of the Samian Ware', Britannia iii

(1972), 1-55, especially 26, 38, 50-2. 84 Ibid., 39-40. s85 AA3 iv (1908), 251, 286, an illegible sestertius, head to left. Proc. Soc. Ant. London xxiii, I13. Dr.

C. H. V. Sutherland suggests that it might be either RIC iii (1930), I9i, No. 1370B or No. 1374C. 86 Op. cit. (note 83), Appendix 1, 45-8, 'The Corbridge Destruction Deposit and the Dating of Antonine

Pottery', especially 46. 87AA4 xxviii (1950), 177-201.



338 GRACE SIMPSON

of samian pottery. In Central Gaulish Potters I referred88 to this deposit, but I did not discuss it because I did not know exactly what had been found in it. By 1949, when I began to study the samian pottery in the Corstopitum collection, 15 decorated bowls were identifiable, but how much more there was I do not know.89 I h ave never seen the plain samian fragments, but Gillam noted that the commonest forms were 31 or 18/31, 33, 27 and 38, in that order. The form 27's are useful because that form becomes uncommon after the time of Hadrian, and Hartley, who has made a study of the later 27's in Scotland,90 confirms what has long been generally accepted, that this form was not manufactured after 16o. Gillam does not state which uncommon forms were in the deposit, or whether there were any examples of 45, 79 and 8o, which began to be made in the late second century. Sixteen potters' stamps were read and listed, but I have not seen them, and they were not identifiable when Hartley was studying the Corstopitum collection for his Corpus of stamps on Gaulish sigillata. Recently, however, he has identified most of them, and re-read several stamps. One-fifth of the deposit will be about

850o sherds of samian pottery: this may or may not include the 2oo00 or 300 tiny scraps from bowls of Cinnamus which I saw together in a box.91

The problems presented by Gillam's list of potters' stamps, and by my illustrations of the 15 decorated bowls, have been discussed by Hartley and he concluded with grave doubts about the value of the 1947 deposit for chronological studies. One sentence might be slightly rephrased to read: 'It is not entirely clear which of the pieces not published by Dr. Simpson are from the destruction deposit' and certainly it would be a great help to know which they are. He commented: 'With so much of the samian ware so clearly residual, it is obviously necessary to ask how much of the coarse pottery is residual too'.

Specialists should no longer be prevented from studying material in the

Corstopitum collection. The latest instance known to me is that two letters request- ing permission for him to examine at Corbridge the Form 45's were written in the

spring and early summer of 1970 by a distinguished French archaeologist. No reply has been received to them or to a further letter in 1971, or to my request on his behalf in early 1972.

Concerning the period of the lower burnt level over the storehouse foundations, Craster wrote in 191 I

While it is possible that this destruction may have come in the reign of Commodus, the evidence provided by two denarii of Severus, one of which was found in the burnt stratum, tends to put it later than 198 . .. Gillam was the first, so far as I know, to comment on this observation,92

accepting that the destruction is dated by this coin,93 although he now attributes the destruction to the reign of Commodus on ceramic evidence.

88 Stanfield and Simpson (1958), xl. 89 AA4 xxxi (953), 242-53; see 248-52, Nos. 24-38. 90 Op. cit. (note 83), 29-30. 91 Simpson, op. cit. (note 89), 250, No. 27. 92 AA3 vii (19i11), 165; Hartley, Britannia iii (i972), 44. 93 AA4 xlviii (1970), 29.



HALTWHISTLE BURN, CORSTOPITUM, ANTONINE WALL 339 Conclusions

Corstopitumn has suffered from over-excavation and a failure to study the

original reports. The early excavators' conclusions have been misunderstood even though repeated several times in early publications. Annual excavations with insufficient reporting afterwards, and the failure to make use of Hedley's skill as a numismatist, have produced a situation in which 'Corbridge, which ought to be our most potent source . . . is beset by problems'. That richly stratified and magnificent source of datable objects of all kinds deserved a better fate.

This paper attempts a re-appraisal of the Antonine period. The most urgent requirement is the full publication of the contents of each stratum-the coins pottery, glass and metal objects (no metal has been published since 1940) and anything else-in the stratified buildings which are earlier than the great storehouse of 163.



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Haltwhistle Burn, Corstopitum and the Antonine Wall: A Reconsideration

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