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Tile-Stamps of the Ninth Legion found in Britain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2011

R. P. Wright
R. P. Wright
Affiliation:
5 Victoria Terrace, Durham
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Extract

This analysis of the stamps of Legio IX (or VIIII) Hispana found at Lincoln, Templeborough, Old Winteringham (Lines), Malton, Aldborough and mainly York, or at Carlisle and its legionary tilery at Scalesceugh forms a sequel to the present writer's article in Britannia vii (1976), 224-35 on ‘Tile-Stamps of the Sixth Legion found in Britain'. It has been based on rubbings and squeezes made from the originals. Much of the earlier bibliography has been omitted because stamps when published merely in printed capitals cannot be identified with specific dies. The die used for the one example known from Lincoln (Lindum) seems to have been taken north for use among others at one of the tileries, on sites not yet located, which supplied York (Eboracum). The rare examples from Aldborough (Isurium Brigantum), the capital of the canton fifteen miles north-west of York, match two of the dies from York. But in contrast one example, Type I, assigned with probability to Aldborough, has no parallel. The outlying post at Malton (Derventio) has produced two dies unmatched elsewhere, even at York.

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Information
Britannia , Volume 9 , November 1978 , pp. 379 - 382
Copyright
Copyright © R. P. Wright 1978. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 Acknowledgement is here paid to the museum officials and directors of excavations who have sent the writer squeezes and rubbings or made their material available in the last three decades. It seems fair to mention the large group from the excavations of 1967-72 under York Minster, made available in 1967 by Mr H. G. Ramm and thereafter by Mr A. D. Phillips and worked on by Miss L. G. Whalley. Secondly by leave of Mr P. V. Addyman, Mr J. A. Spriggs worked over the material from York Archaeological Trust. Mr L. P. Wenham sent information and material from his various excavations.

2 Type 6 (below). For the transfer from Exeter to Caerleon of a mould for antefixes for use in a legionary tilery see Bidwell and Boon, Britannia vii (1976), 279.Google Scholar For debris dumped from tile kilns of LEG IX HISP east of the north-east angle of the Fortress at York see Addyman, , Antiq. Journ. liv (1974), 213, 215, fig. 9.3.Google Scholar

3 The Philosophical and Literary Society of Leeds in 1921 transferred its collections to Leeds City Museum. These included three stamped tiles from Slack and two Ninth Legion items, namely a brick of Type 10, already known at Aldborough, and a tegula, Type I. As the Accession Books were lost in war-damage in 1941, the provenance of the legionary stamps remains uncertain, but has been assumed by die Museum officials to be Aldborough as the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society 37th Report, 1856-57, 23 records a gift by James Wardell of ‘several fragments of pottery and other remains from Aldborough’.

4 Corder, , Defences of the Roman fort at Malton (Leeds 1929), 37, 39Google Scholar, fig. 7 No. 14. Type 15, with carefully mitred corners, comes from two fragmentary bricks which differ from Type 14, despite the connection made in Corder's figure.

5 Haverfield, , Cumb. and Westm. 2nd ser. xvi (1916), 282Google Scholar, Hope ibid., 289, xxii (1922), 456 amending to Ninth Legion. Presumably the Ninth Legion which stamped two of the bricks also made the roofing tiles and water pipes which were found. In addition part of a brick [LEG] XX VV with the small Vs superimposed, unmatched at Chester (Deva) or its tilery at Holt, a definite waster from a kiln, indicates activity, which need not have been contemporary, by this other legion.

Many sherds of miscellaneous pottery were found and in 1961 Mr R. L. Bellhouse tested the area by a series of trial pits from which he secured wasters of tegulae, imbrices and voussoirs, and also a water pipe and parts of twelve pottery vessels (Cumb. and Westm. 2nd ser. lxxi (1971), 35).Google Scholar In 1970-71 Mr G. G. S. Richardson excavated a pottery kiln and from a magnetometer survey estimated that the site has substantial remains of at least twenty-five kilns (ibid, lxxiii (1973), 79 ff.).

6 Part of a tegula found in 1953 in the River Eden opposite Stanwix (Petriana) (JRS xliv (1954), 109, No. 32)Google Scholar. Tegula (EE x, 1271c) found in 1894 in Brook Street, Carlisle, forming a tile tomb with six tegulae stamped LIIG II VG (EE ix, 1268b; Ferguson, PSA 2nd ser. xv (1894), 261Google Scholar, Cumb. and Westm. Ist ser. xiii (1895), 251).Google Scholar

7 Hartley, , in Butler, R. M. (ed.), Soldier and civilian in Roman Yorkshire (Leicester, 1971), 60–61.Google Scholar

8 Hope, L. E., then Curator of Carlisle Museum (Cumb. and Westm. 2nd ser. xxii (1922), 457)Google Scholar, emended EE ix 1269 (Type 4), and Cumb. and Westm. 2nd ser. xvi (1916), 282, 290Google Scholar (Type 3).

9 Bogaers to R.P.W., 28 July 1962; Numaga xii (1965), 10 ff.Google Scholar; Bonner Jahrbücher, Beiheft 19, Studien zu den Militärgrenzen Roms (Köln, 1967)Google Scholar, (for tegula) 63, fig. 5, Taf. 5,3, (for mortarium) 64, fig. 6, Taf. 5,4; Frere, Britannia (1967), 139; Bogaers, und Rüger, , Die niedergermanische Limes (Köln, 1974), 15, 78.Google Scholar

10 The date at which the Ninth Legion ceased to occupy Nijmegen has not yet been established. Professor Birley, E. in Butler, R. M. (ed.). Soldier and civilian in Roman Yorkshire (Leicester, 1971), 74 ff.Google Scholar, discusses the evidence for further stages in this legion's existence.

11 Thoresby stated that a brick reading LEG·IX·VIC had been found in York (Phil. Trans, xxv (1706), 2195Google Scholar, Ducatus Leodiensis (1715), 562), repeated by Drake, Eboracum (1736), 58, pl. VIII, 7, and Stukeley, , Memoirs iii 379 (26 June 1740)Google Scholar. But Kenrick, , Historical notices of Ninth & Sixth Legions (York, 1867), 10Google Scholar, questioned the reading; Huebner, CIL vii, 1224e regarded VIC as an error for HISP, and Haverfield EE vii 1123 rejected Stukeley. Ramm, Yorks. Archit. & York Arch. Soc. Report 1953-54, 47. n. 75, suggests that in a stamp of LEG VI VIC the numeral might have been inverted and transposed.