The 19th century saw several important discoveries within the Roman settlement that lies north-east of the fort at Maryport, but since then little substantive archaeological work had been carried out on the site – until recently. Between 2011 and 2015, two major research excavations were undertaken at Maryport: the Altars and Temples Project, and the Settlement Project. The former sought to contextualise and understand some of the most significant antiquarian discoveries: a cache of 17 altars, found in a series of pits, and two putative temples. Meanwhile, the Settlement Project targeted a previously unexcavated area at the heart of the extramural occupation, aiming to illuminate the everyday lives of the site’s ‘ordinary’ inhabitants. What did these initiatives reveal?
Enigmatic altars
The spectacular collection of Roman military altars held by the Senhouse Museum at Maryport is justifiably famous. Seventeen of these were found in 1870, enigmatically buried in pits, and following the publication of a paper by Peter Wenham in 1939 it was believed that when, every year, a new altar was erected at the site, the previous year’s altar was ritually interred at the same time. This was an appealing image, but by the 1990s a variety of factors had cast serious doubt on the idea.
To investigate further, in 2011 the Senhouse Museum Trust commissioned Newcastle University to excavate the location of the altars’ discovery, hoping to unpick why, how, and when the altars were buried, and where they had been dedicated and venerated. It was also important to understand the archaeological methods of our predecessors. Five seasons of excavation followed, running until 2015. What emerged was illuminating.
Excavating the CA archive