Buried at Birdoswald: excavating a Roman cremation cemetery outside the fort

This article is from Current Archaeology issue 353

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To the west of Birdoswald fort, on the edge of a high cliff above the River Irthing, lies a Roman cremation cemetery. The dead who were interred there have not been allowed to rest in peace, however: in recent years, the river cliff has seen a dramatic acceleration in erosion, threatening the archaeology of the cemetery. In 1999, Time Team undertook a small evaluation there, recovering a couple of cremation deposits, but the increased erosion observed in 2008 required a much larger response.

It was decided to create an archaeological ‘cordon sanitaire’ by fully excavating a 15m-wide area along the cliff edge, recovering and recording the archaeology deemed under long- and medium-term threat. This work, carried out by the Archaeological Projects Team of (then) English Heritage, aided by a team from Newcastle University’s archaeology department, began only a fortnight after the 2009 Pilgrimage had visited the site. Remarkably, this remains the only excavation of any size to have taken place on a Roman cemetery on the line of Hadrian’s Wall. What did it find?

Roman remains

The first Roman remains to come to light were traces of a metalled road running from the extramural settlement outside the fort to the cemetery. The 3rd-century cremations found by Time Team lay on the west side of this road, away from the eroding cliff edge, and to the north we identified funerary deposits enclosed by a shallow ditched or palisaded boundary. Its outline ran some 61m north–south, but the eastern return was only 7m long before reaching the cliff edge – it was clear that centuries of erosion had removed much of the enclosure and its contents. Ploughing had also taken its toll on the buried archaeology – though, while the cemetery was first identified in 1961 when the field was ploughed for the first time for many years, it seems to be medieval ridge-and-furrow ploughing rather than modern agriculture that had caused the damage.

There were still remains to be recovered, however: within the enclosure, a total of 49 cremation-related deposits were excavated. These were extremely varied, and seem to reflect a number of different ritual practices. Most (34 out of 49) took the form of simple circular or rectangular pits containing charcoal and calcined bone, three of which were slightly elaborated – one with a flagstone base, another with the sides of the pit lined with pieces from a single deliberately broken flagstone, while the third, which was very disturbed, may have been tile-lined.

Might the broken flagstone lining have been referencing a stone cist? Three of these were found, all very different in form. The largest comprised a rectangular pit that was lined and lidded in stone. In one corner was a small deposit of charcoal and calcined bone, and in the other an empty pot, holed in the base and laid on its side. The cist appears to have been covered by a mound whose material had been won from the ring-ditch surrounding it; it is possible that the broken thick stone slab set upright adjacent to this burial had been the base of a tombstone or grave marker.

Another cist, roughly built from cobbles with a small accessory vessel built into the wall, seems to have contained a wooden box into which charcoal and calcined bone had been placed. This container had since decayed, leaving only a pattern of the nails that had once held it together to testify to its presence. The third and last cist was a tiny feature, only 0.35m long, and empty of any burnt material. Close by, a pit seemed to echo the structure of a cist, divided into two compartments by a rough cobble lining. This contained a bare handful of charcoal and burnt bone, but what was particularly interesting about this feature was the three small drinking vessels that had been smashed in the bottom before backfilling – a farewell toast by friends of the deceased?