Tag: Ancient History
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A Sunken Shield
The River Tyne was an important access point for Roman ships, bringing supplies and soldiers for the forts along Hadrian’s Wall. We’ve already seen some of the intriguing objects pulled from its watery depths, like the altars to Neptune and Oceanus. But what else has been discovered lurking beneath the surface? Our object today is…
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Bathing Venus
Now that the days are getting longer and the weather is getting warmer, we’re seeing more people out at the coast braving the North Sea for a swim – and it reminded us of one of our favourite objects in the Great North Museum: Bathing Venus! This stone may not have an inscription, but it’s…
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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…
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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…
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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: The…
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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…
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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…
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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? This altar uses some new abbreviations we haven’t encountered…
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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…
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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…
Romans on the Tyne 