Empire harks back
A new book explores the stories behind Yorkshire’s Roman treasures and how they left an indelible mark on our history. Chris Bond talks to its author, Adam Parker.
THANKS to Monty Python, we all know the Romans actually did an awful lot for us. By the time they returned home early in the fifth century AD, they had introduced new towns, plants and animals, as well as new ways of reading and even a new religion. And let’s not forget the roads – 10,000 miles worth to be precise – some of which can still be traced today.
As legacies go, it’s not bad and from the legionary fortress at York to the coastal lookout towers, and from the artisan potters of Crambeck to the brooch makers of Castleford, the Romans certainly left an indelible mark on Yorkshire. This legacy is explored by Adam Parker in his new book, Treasures of Roman Yorkshire, in which he discusses a raft of interesting objects, people and places from the period and examines the stories behind them.
When the Romans invaded what is now modern day Yorkshire, it was controlled by two iron age tribes – the Brigantes and the Parisii. And once here, they quickly sought to stamp their authority. “The earliest Roman structure built in Yorkshire is a small fort at Templeborough, near Rotherham, but it was the creation of the legionary fortress at York in AD 70 that really established the Roman footprint in Yorkshire,” says Parker, assistant curator of archaeology at the Yorkshire Museum. “After AD 70 there’s a whole series of smaller forts built in and around Yorkshire and these were some of the foundations of what would ultimately become our modern day towns in the area, like Brough, Castleford, Malton and Doncaster. These forts helped establish Roman administrative and military rule over this part of the region.”
Civilian settlements sprang up around the forts which were linked by roads to key places further south like Lincoln, Colchester and London. The Romans developed a sophisticated trade network that brought all kinds of goods here. “You get Gallic pottery from modern day France turning up here and it was a twoway street with things like Whitby jet shipped down south and to the continent and places like Germany. So in a fairly rural part of Roman Yorkshire in the mid-second century, you would have had access to Spanish olive oil and wine that was produced in North Africa,” says Parker. “The Roman empire is a story of globalisation and Yorkshire becomes connected locally, regionally, nationally and internationally in a way that it hadn’t been previously.”
Yorkshire has proved to be a fertile ground for archaeologists and historians, with much of what we know about the Roman era coming from big excavations carried out in the 19th century. Such discoveries included the famous mosaic depicting the she-wolf and twins from
Aldborough, which is now housed at Leeds Museum. “It’s really interesting because it’s a very traditional Roman image but is a local interpretation of a foundation myth of a city far away. So it’s showing that kind of melding of local products with an international story,” adds Parker.
It's impossible to talk about Roman Yorkshire without discussing York, the fulcrum around which the story of Roman Britain revolves. “At different points throughout its history York was the centre of the Roman empire,” says Parker.
One of the reasons for this is it’s where Constantine was famously declared emperor. At the time there were different emperors ruling different parts of the Roman empire and when Constantine made his claim to be emperor he started a civil war, which he won. Constantine is an important figure in Roman history and a
’It’s probably a ritual deposit to perhaps call on a supernatural power to do something.’
marble bust of him, which was discovered in Stonegate during the 19th century, is interesting for several reasons. “The statue has probably been reworked – it might have been an existing statue of Hercules that’s been turned into a depiction of the new emperor,” says Parker.
Some seemingly lesser finds, like a huge collection of copper alloy pots and pans discovered in Knaresborough, are no less significant. “It’s unusual because there aren’t many metalwork hoards that don’t include coins and we genuinely don’t know why this much stuff would have been placed into a hole in the ground at some point in the Roman period, and it’s made us think differently about hoards. Maybe it was a deposit box, or perhaps it was stolen, or just a supply of materials.”
Discoveries are still being made today. In 2020, archaeologists excavating a stretch of the A1 near Scotch Corner before a major upgrade discovered evidence of Roman engineering and repair work which revealed the Romans settled in North Yorkshire at least a decade earlier than previously thought. This was the same year as another exciting, albeit small, find. Four objects – a sceptre-head in the form of a bust of emperor Marcus Aurelius; a horse-head key fragment; a figurine of the god Mars as a cavalryman; and a plumb bob – were discovered near Ampleforth. “It’s not like anything that’s been found in Yorkshire and it’s a really strange group of objects,” says Parker. “These unusual objects were deposited in a field in Yorkshire for reasons we don’t know about. The sceptre-head would have been carried by a priest and they would have all been bright bronze originally but when they went into the ground they were all broken.”
This collection, known as the Ryedale
Hoard, was acquired by the Yorkshire Museum in 2022. “It’s curious because there isn’t a Roman settlement nearby, there isn’t a town, or a farmstead or a villa. It’s probably a ritual deposit to perhaps call on a supernatural power to do something and it’s probably related to agricultural practices.”
Parker’s book is well illustrated and accessible to the average reader and he hopes it encourages people to want to find out more about the Roman heritage on their doorstep. “It’s to show some of the incredible remains that survive in Yorkshire and I hope it spurs people’s interest,” he says. “A lot of our towns and cities have foundations that go back nearly 2,000 years and have been continually inhabited since then, which wouldn’t have happened had it not been for the Romans.”