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North East Museums manages 12 heritage sites, including two Roman forts, a steam railway, and diverse museums and galleries. For two days in August, I based myself in Newcastle to visit three properties – the Great North Museum: Hancock in the city centre, and Arbeia and Segedunum Roman forts, located a Metro ride away in South Shields and Wallsend respectively – to visit a trio of exhibitions running until late September and early October (see ‘Further information’ below).
Following the eagle
On the northern bank of the Tyne estuary, a ragged chunk of masonry reaches towards the water. It represents the easternmost surviving section of Hadrian’s Wall: traces that have led to this place being known, since the medieval period, as Wallsend. To the Romans, though, it was Segedunum, a fort guarding the river mouth. Today, visitors can walk through its excavated remains, while the site museum’s permanent collections trace local prehistoric, Roman, and industrial history. These are currently complemented by Following the Eagle, an exhibition exploring the diversity of the Roman army.
Along with the legions, a key part of the Roman military machine was its auxiliary units, conscripted from conquered territories. These troops were often sent to garrison provinces hundreds or even thousands of miles from their homelands, and Following the Eagle draws together artefacts from across the Roman Empire to illustrate themes of mobility and identity. These include a series of military diplomas – legal documents engraved within slim bronze booklets – that would have been among veterans’ most prized possessions. Unlike legionaries, auxiliary troops were not Roman citizens, but they could earn this status and the legal rights that came with it through 25 years’ service. This precious reward was also granted to the soldier’s children, transforming his family’s fortunes, and a diploma was given on his retirement as proof and a passport to this new future. The importance of diplomas is brought powerfully home by the fact that, even after citizenship was extended to all free people in the Empire after AD 212, they continued to be issued, perhaps as evidence of honourable discharge.
In the exhibition, visitors learn about how diplomas were made and witnessed, the key components of their formulaic legal text, and what they reveal about the bureaucratic process itself. Surviving examples indicate that the inner wording was written in black ink first and then engraved, possibly suggesting the involvement of both literate and illiterate workers, while in some cases you can see different hands creating the uniform sections and filling in details specific to the retiring soldier.
Diplomas preserve intriguing details of individual soldiers, too, documenting their origins and rank, and providing important evidence of where particular units were stationed. The examples on display at Segedunum highlight how far some soldiers travelled during their career, including diplomas issued to Dernaius, who was possibly from modern Bulgaria/Romania and served as an officer in the Roman fleet based at Ravenna in Italy; and Longinus, who was in the 1st Cohort of Hamian Archers, a Syrian unit based on Hadrian’s Wall. A highlight, though, is a fragment of a diploma issued in AD 121: the soldier’s name and unit are lost, but the surviving portion states that his mother, three brothers, and sister were also to be accorded citizenship on his retirement – something so rare that it speaks of a truly exceptional act of service that has now been lost to history.
These insights are complemented by other displays exploring ideas of identity, from coins depicting personifications of defeated territories and metalwork reflecting the movement of objects, ideas, and religious beliefs (pictured below) across the Empire, to 3rd-century belt-fittings spelling out the names of auxiliary units and other pieces of more everyday kit marked with their owner’s name. Rather more enigmatic is a curse tablet scratched with the names of 21 soldiers including eight officers – one can only wonder why its creator had taken against so many of his comrades.
A bust of the god Serapis and perfume vessels depicting Hercules and an east African man. Image: C Hilts
After the Fire
Stories of far-travelled people can also be found at Arbeia, South Shields Roman Fort, which lies on the far side of the Tyne. Originally founded to guard an estuary port, it was greatly expanded to serve as a supply hub for Septimius Severus’ early 3rd-century campaigns into Caledonia, and later functioned as a key logistical hub supporting Hadrian’s Wall. Excavations at this fort famously produced two gravestones that can be seen in the site museum’s ‘Set in Stone’ gallery. They commemorate the freedman Victor, a Moor from North Africa, and another former slave, Regina, who was born among the Catuvellauni of southern England, married a man from Syria, and ended her days on the northern frontier.
The neighbouring ‘Amazing Finds’ gallery currently includes After the Fire, an exhibition tracing the final century of Roman activity at Arbeia. Archaeological evidence attests that the site was devastated by a fire of unknown cause around the start of the 4th century, destroying many of its buildings. The fort rose from the ashes, however, and was rebuilt according to the latest in martial design. A new headquarters building was constructed at the end of a processional way, and two main roads divided the site’s military accommodation into quarters. One of these included a grand new house for the commanding officer and his family, a large portion of which has been colourfully recreated at full scale as part of the site’s permanent displays – visitors can also walk through a replica barrack block and climb to the top of the reconstructed West Gate to look out over the exposed fort remains. The elaborate residence saw a dramatic change of status, though, shifting from military to civilian use, with some areas converted into workshops by the late 4th century. Some of the items in the exhibition reflect these industrial activities, including antler-working, furniture-making, and the production of jet jewellery and gaming pieces. The presence of a tiny Mediterranean coral bead from the same period highlights how this community maintained connections across the Roman world even in its twilight years.
Treasure: Hidden, Lost, Found
Before the frontier fortifications were extended to Wallsend, the original eastern end-point of Hadrian’s Wall lay in what today is central Newcastle, at Pons Aelius (Hadrian’s Bridge), a legionary fort guarding an important river crossing and now covered by the city’s medieval castle. Newcastle is also home to the Great North Museum: Hancock; its permanent collections span such diverse subjects as Roman Britain, ancient Greece and Egypt, and natural history, and until 20 September it hosts an exhibition highlighting treasure finds from northern Britain.
Treasure: Hidden, Lost, Found spans 3,500 years and includes both antiquarian finds and recent discoveries. On entering, visitors are greeted by the West Woodburn Hoard – 9th-century gold items found close to Dere Street in 2021, highlighting the Roman road’s continued importance in the medieval period – and later encounter a tiny gold mount in the shape of a primrose, which was excavated at Auckland Palace in 2024.
Neighbouring cases contain a dazzling diversity of different hoards – Roman hacksilver and coins from Scotland; two caches of Tudor coins from Lindisfarne, found 50 years apart on almost the same spot; Viking Age metalwork from Lancashire’s famous Cuerdale Hoard – while examples from other periods can be found elsewhere in the exhibition. These include a trio of Bronze Age swords whose blades had been thrust carefully into the ground, and the 3rd-century Aesica Hoard, a collection of Roman jewellery that had been carefully buried within one of the gates of Great Chesters Fort on Hadrian’s Wall. Particularly intriguing is the Backworth Hoard, an assemblage of gold and silver Roman objects including a pan whose handle has a written dedication to the Deae Matres, or Mother Goddesses. Other engaging finds preserve the name not of a deity, but of their owner, among them an Anglo-Saxon cross pendant whose runic inscription is interpreted as ‘Eadruf’, and a Roman gold finger-ring whose openwork decoration includes the name Aemilia.
All of the finds mentioned after the Cuerdale Hoard are found within a second room where visitors can also learn about how items enter the ground or water in the first place (whether as offerings, accidental losses, or for safekeeping), and about the other end of their story: the process of discovery. These displays explore archaeological excavations, metal detected artefacts, and chance finds involving, for example, construction, agriculture, or dredging (my favourite explanatory caption read ‘turnip pulling, 1840’). Crucially, here, too, you can learn about legal definitions of treasure, what to do if you find it, and the work of the Portable Antiquities Scheme.
The full text of this Roman ring reads ‘Aemilia, may you live [in Christ]’, a common early Christian sentiment. Image: North East Museums
• Following the Eagle runs at Segedunum Roman Fort in Wallsend until 3 October. Entry is included in general admission to the site (from £7.75); see www.northeastmuseums.org.uk/segedunum/whats-on/following-the-eagle.
• After the Fire is at Arbeia Roman Fort in South Shields until 27 September. Entry is free; see www.northeastmuseums.org.uk/arbeia/whats-on/after-the-fire.
• Treasure: Hidden, Lost, Found is at the Great North Museum: Hancock until 20 September. Entry is free; see www.northeastmuseums.org.uk/greatnorthmuseum/whats-on/treasure-hidden-lost-found.
