Meggie Macdonald

I am endlessly entertained by how enthusiastic academics will try anything to get the results they need to prove or disprove a theory about the ancient world.  Apart from the usual stories – building ballistae, recreating the building techniques during the Neolithic period, dragging huge stones to demonstrate the difficulty in building pyramids in Egypt – there are always the quick anecdotes that make me smile.

Most recently – and, as far as I’m aware, not the first time this has been implemented – a group of archaeologist who discovered a huge sealed urn utilized the X-ray machines at the Exeter Airport to determine what was inside it.  The answer was the remains of a Roman, discovered at the site of a Roman fort at St. Andrews Hill in Cullompton.

From the dates of the fort and of the urn, it appears that this site was abandoned shortly after the Romans established more definite control over the south coast of England.  This would have been years after the Boudiccan Revolt of 60-61 AD/CE and well after the sweeping invasions of Aulus Plautius during the reign of Claudius (41-54 AD/CE).  In AD/CE 43, distinguished senator Aulus Plautius landed at Rutupiae with four legions:  the Second Augusta, the Ninth Hispania, the Fourteenth Gemina and the Twentieth Valeria Victrix.  The Ninth Hispania would later march north in 117 AD/CE to support the defeat of an uprising and were never heard from again (although it is argued that they survived their stint in Britain and were thereafter posted to the East, where they were destroyed during the Bar Kochba Revolt in Judaea) .  The Second Augusta was commanded by the future emperor Vespasian, sweeping through the countryside to Wales, where they established their base of operations at Caerleon in the Usk valley.