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Votive Objects and Objects of Votive Significance from Great Walsingham

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2011

Jean Bagnall Smith
Jean Bagnall Smith
Affiliation:
Institute of Archaeology, Oxford
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In recent years, enough objects of a religious or votive nature have been found to suggest that there was a temple in one particular area of the Roman settlement of Great Walsingham with Wighton, in north central Norfolk. These include some important figurines, amongst them three quite different Mercury figures, two goats, one of them very well modelled, and three cocks. There is a portrait bust of Minerva and another of a three-horned deity, masks of Cupid, and representations of satyrs. Nearby, in separate contexts, were discovered a figure of Minerva and a mount in the form of a head of Jupiter. The votive material includes three rings with dedicatory inscriptions—to Mercury, and probably to Toutates, and to the Matres Transmarini; there is also a bronze letter ‘V’ used in a dedication, possibly even the first letter of V.S.L.M. There are six model objects—a tiny enamelled stand, two wheels from different moulds, a mattock head, an axe, and a spear; there is also a lead coin-mould, perhaps for making ‘temple money’ and the handle of a trulla. The finds imply polytheistic beliefs. However, the recovery of so many representations of the god Mercury suggests that here, as elsewhere in the Roman North-West, he was the most popular deity; the finds relating to Cupid and satyrs suggest the existence also of a cult to Bacchus.

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Britannia , Volume 30 , November 1999 , pp. 21 - 56
Copyright
Copyright © Jean Bagnall Smith 1999. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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