Mysterious Mithras

The many ancient gods and goddesses are one of the most interesting parts of Roman life! We’ve already seen examples of the Romans bringing their own gods to Britannia (Neptune and Oceanus), as well as what happens when the Romans decide to adopt a local British god like Brigantia, or Antenociticus. But do they ever take these locally-adopted gods to new places, too?

Of course!

Among the many gods and goddesses we find along Hadrian’s Wall, there is one especially mysterious visitor who has come all the way from Persia: Mithras. And we’re not just dealing with altars when it comes to Mithras. There’s a range of evidence left behind by his small bands of worshippers, including the temples that they gathered in. Oh, and did we mention there’s also a big cosmic egg?

Let’s start with a trip out of Pons Aelius and on to Brocolitia to visit a temple to Mithras…

Time to head west!

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Ancient Stories: Aurelia Aureliana

It’s about time we met another woman from the furthest edges of the Roman Empire – and as we saw already with Regina, the key type of evidence we have for women in Roman Britain is their tombstones. Cheery! This time we’ve chosen one of our favourite tombstones on display at the Great North Museum – a large carved monument belonging to a woman called Aurelia Aureliana.

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Workshop Bookings: Open!

The Classics and Ancient History outreach team at Newcastle University are now taking bookings for their free Romans on the Tyne workshops for local primary schools in and around the Tyneside area! These workshops focus on introducing pupils to Roman life here at Hadrian’s Wall through object handling, creative activities, and even a little bit of Latin. Delivered by our student outreach team, they are designed to make our own local Roman past accessible to everyone.

The workshops are funded through support from Newcastle University and the Classical Association so there is no charge to participating schools. We are currently booking workshop activities for June – July 2022, and provisionally for the next academic year. Teachers can opt for:

• Mini taster session (20-30 minutes)
• Workshop (1 hour)
• Borrow a Box (7 day free loan of a handling box + object guide)

Our most popular choice so far has been the 1-hour workshops, which introduce pupils to the people of the Roman North East through their stories, the objects they left behind, and even some of the smells of Roman Britannia!

We would love to have pupils from all across the Tyneside area take part: if you think it is something your school would be interested in and would like to find out more / make a booking, please get in touch with our Project Lead Dr Stephanie Holton (Stephanie.Holton@ncl.ac.uk) or send your request via our Booking Form!

Ancient Stories: Regina

Did you discover any useful clues on the famous tombstone in our last post? Let’s take a closer look at Regina together, and see what we can find out.

Let’s start with the inscription. Regina is particularly special as her tombstone is bilingual: this means it has a message written in two different languages:

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Ancient Stories: Regina

Ancient monuments with inscriptions weren’t just for celebrating big historic events, important dates, or honouring the gods. There’s also a whole category of inscriptions that can tell us lost of details about peoples’ lives. We can find out names, ages, accomplishments – even sometimes information on what they were like as a person. And these types of inscriptions are still something we do today to celebrate the lives of our loved ones. Can you guess what they might be?

Different ‘modern’ monuments in St Andrew’s Cemetery, Jesmond – though only modern compared to the Romans, as these are over 100 years old!

That’s right, we’re talking about tombstones, sometimes also called gravestones or headstones. The Romans believed it was very important to honour the dead and they often erected beautiful funerary monuments to celebrate their loved ones. The Romans here in Britannia were no different, and we can find out useful information about the type of people living in and around Hadrian’s Wall from this particular type of stone that they left behind.

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Fortune on the Frontier

It wasn’t just the Olympian gods who came along when the Romans arrived in Britannia! The Romans had lots of gods and goddesses – and they were each in charge of different things. We’ve met Oceanus and Neptune already, useful gods to have on your side as you make dangerous journeys by sea and build new bridges across unfamiliar rivers. Let’s meet another: Fortuna. Fortuna was the Roman goddess of luck, chance, and good fortune — a very helpful goddess when you’ve been sent to guard Hadrian’s Wall in the far North!

There are lots of different ways the Romans along Hadrian’s Wall honoured the goddess Fortuna, but we thought we’d share two of our favourite examples – a small statue from Segedunum, and a small carving fished out of the River Tyne, now on display at the Great North Museum.

This small statue was excavated at the site of the Commanding Officer’s house at Segedunum Fort:

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Ancient Stories: Antenociticus

Let’s take a closer look at the first of two altars found dedicated to our special Tyneside Romano-British god: Antenociticus! You can see this inscription has lots more information than any of the altars we’ve looked at so far – so what does it tell us?

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Ancient Stories: Antenociticus

Did you know there is a very special Roman god found only in Newcastle? Back in the 19th century, a small temple was discovered in Benwell, an area in the west of the city. Three stone altars were also excavated, along with the head and arm of a statue. The inscriptions on these altars tell us that the temple was built to honour a god called Antenociticus (an-ten-oh-kitty-cuss). So who is he? Let’s find out more!

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Ancient Stories: Brigantia

Let’s take a closer look at the message left for Brigantia, our Romano-British goddess in the North!

In our last entry we gave you another challenge: transcribing the message left on an altar from Arbeia. Did you identify all the letters? Recording the inscription is an important step before translating it – it helps us see the separate words, as well as identify any problems like broken pieces or missing letters. Luckily for us, this time our altar isn’t damaged! So let’s take a look at what it says:

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Ancient Stories: Brigantia

Did you know the Romans liked to borrow gods and goddesses from other cultures? This week, we’re looking at some Romano-British gods and goddesses. These interesting figures were a blend of Roman mythology and Celtic mythology, resulting in new and unique deities at the northernmost point of the Roman Empire. This process of blending two mythological traditions is sometimes called syncretism.

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