Just to the south of Hadrian’s Wall, and at around the same time as the frontier fortifications were being built, the Romans constructed a fort on high ground overlooking the Solway estuary. Then, the site was known as Alauna Carvetiorum – today we call it Maryport – and it formed part of a chain of forts safeguarding the Cumbrian coast, which also represented an important communications and supply network. Perhaps the most famous finds from the fort are a collection of freestanding stone altars dedicated to the god Jupiter, which were found buried in a series of large pits on the highest point of the local landscape, 300m outside its walls (many are now displayed in Senhouse Roman Museum on the site). Between 2011 and 2015, these enigmatic objects formed one of the key foci of investigations on the site by Professor Ian Haynes and Tony Wilmott (investigations which were part-funded by Senhouse Museum Trust, part-funded by Newcastle University, and have recently been published in full, together with an account of antiquarian work on the site – see ‘Further reading’ on p.45), but the story of their discovery actually dates back centuries earlier.
It is a story that we have already explored in the pages of this magazine (see CA 259), but briefly to recap: altars were being unearthed at Maryport as early as 1599, as noted by the antiquarian William Camden, though this was only the first recorded discovery, and precise findspots and detailed descriptions of their appearance were rarely documented. By the later decades of the 19th century, however, attitudes to archaeological recording had advanced somewhat – and some of the most significant finds are described in the 1874 edition of the Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, which carries a report by John Collingwood Bruce hailing the discovery of a cluster of 17 altars north-west of the fort. Many of them bore the letters ‘IOM’, indicating that they were intended to venerate ‘Jupiter, Best and Greatest’, as well as the names of the commanders and units that had commissioned their creation – but why had the altars subsequently been committed to the ground?
It was initially suggested that the pits could represent an annual practice where, as a new altar was dedicated, its predecessor was respectfully laid to rest. Ian and Tony’s 2011-2012 excavations comprehensively debunked this theory, however, after they revealed substantial post-holes in the bottom of the pits. Far from being designed as the final resting place of still-revered stonework, the pits had once supported the timbers of at least one monumental wooden building – and the altars had been buried as convenient ballast.
Choosing a field: specialisms in archaeology