Coins from Binchester

Post-excavation work on the project is continuing apace. We've now had our first comments on the coins from the site written for us by our coin specialist Philippa Walton (Institute of Archaeology, London). She writes

Preliminary report on the coins recovered from the Binchester excavations 2009

Philippa Walton

Introduction

A total of 218 coins were recovered the excavations undertaken by the University of Durham, Durham County Council, Stanford University and the Archaeological and Architectural Society of Durham and Northumberland at Binchester (County Durham) in 2009. 216 of these coins date to the Roman period. The remaining two coins comprise a medieval silver long cross penny (SF ??) and a copper alloy seventeenth century rose farthing (SF 11).

The majority of coins recorded were recovered from unstratified or post Roman contexts and therefore the coins are not suitable for stratigraphic dating purposes. However, following the Applied Numismatic principles pioneered by Richard Reece and John Casey, they are useful for obtaining a better understanding of the broad chronology of the site and periods of intense activity.

The chronological distribution of coins

133 of the Roman coins were identifiable to the extent that they could be assigned to Reece periods as summarised by Table 1. A further 83 coins were recognisable in date but were either too corroded or dirty to assign to a particular Reece period. However, it was possible to assign them to a century or range of centuries by size and composition as summarized in Table 2.

As with other sites in Britain, the coin loss at Binchester evidenced by the 2009 excavations is strongest in the late third and fourth centuries AD (see Figure 1). However, when compared with Reece’s British Mean (compiled from 140 coin assemblages from Britain), it is obvious that the 2009 assemblage demonstrates far greater coin loss than average for Periods 14 (AD 275-285) and 17 (AD 330-348). It is not possible at present to account for the peak in Period 14 coin loss. However, the peak in Period 17 is also present in the assemblage recovered from previous excavations at Binchester (Reece 1991). It may indicate significant activity at the site during this period. A brief survey of other published coin assemblages from the North East (South Shields, Piercebridge, Chester-le-Street, Greta Bridge, Corbridge, Carrawburgh, Housesteads) demonstrates that a period 17 peak is not characteristic of the region although Corbridge (Reece 1991) does possess similar per mill (coins per 1000) values for the period AD 260 to 348 (Periods 13-17). The latest coins from the site are two copper alloy nummi of the House of Theodosius. Only one possesses a legible reverse and is a VICTORIA AVGG issue dating to AD 388-395. This issue is among the latest copper alloy coins to be supplied to Britain and attests to the continued use of money at Binchester even in the very late fourth century AD.

Issues of numismatic interest

The assemblage on the whole comprises common coinage of the periods represented. All radiates recorded are barbarous issues, some of idiosyncratic style and GLORIA EXERCITVS and VRBS ROMA issues are predominant amongst the Period 17 coins. However, there are 4 individual issues of numismatic interest amongst the assemblage. These are:

a) A denarius of Otho dating to AD 69 (SF ??) This is a variant on an aureus type (RIC 20 var) and is only the third example known, the others being a example from France (BN III, 25) and a PAS record BH-F5BD67.
b) Two cut down issues of Magnentius or Decentius (AD 350-353) (u/s; 16 & 92) attesting to the recycling of coinage in the period following the downfall of the usurpers.
c) A possible cast copy of a nummus of the House of Theodosius (AD 388-402). Cast copies of this date are unusual as site finds in Britain.

Binchester in Second Life

One of the principal investigators on the Durham-Stanford Binchester Research Project is Dr Gary Devore, who amongst other research interests is exploring the potential for Virtual Reality can be used to present information about the Roman world. Using the virtual world platform of Second Life he has created a fantastic reconstruction of the bath-house at Binchester. There is also a more extended exploration of the way in which Second Life is being used to present the Roman past. It all looks fabulous. All I want now is a virtual Bincheste I can upload into Rome:Total War!

Binchester on YouTube

GSB Prospection, who carried out the geophysical survey for the Time Team investigation at Binchester a couple of years ago have posted a couple of interesting videos on YouTube. They are videos demonstrating the results of the Ground Penetrating Radar survey on the mausolea in 3-D. There is a video of a horizontally-rotating GPR model, a vertically-rotating GPR model and an amplitude-slice animation. Fascinating stuff!

Binchester Pictures

Only a brief message to say that I've been having endless technical problems with Flickr (I can upload my images but I can't seem to make them public...), so I've created a Picasa album for this year's fieldwork at Binchester. Its mainly general site and working shots rather than detailed records shots, but there area a number of the recent photographs by Aerial Cam and also some images of our summer open days.

Geophysics Results

As promised the latest results from the geophysical survey carried out last week at Binchester. The image here shows the combined plot of all surveys carried out on the site including work previously done by Geoquest and GSB Prospection. The recent work carried out by Archaeological Services and funded by the Roman Research Trust is the large (5ha) L-shaped area to the north of the fort.

It clearly shows extensive activity outside the fort in this area, including possible stone-founded buildings close to the northern corner of the defences. There are also a couple of large enclosures with some kind of activity within them in the north-eastern corner of the plot. It is not clear precisely what these are, possibilities include Late Iron Age or Roman rural settlements, areas of industrial activity or possibly even cemeteries.

NB: October 12th: new version of the geophysics posted with correct logo DP

Geophysics

I'm finally back from my foreign fieldwork, and have time report on a number of developments with Binchester that have occurred in my absence. Earlier on in the month we had return visit from Aerial-Cam who did some more excellent overhead photographs of this year's trench. It is possible to see most of the length of the excavated building now.

Today work has begun on the new phase of geophysics funded by the Roman Research Trust on 5ha of land to the north of the site. I'll post the results as soon as I have them.

Finally, after a long season, the site is being backfilled today. We are placing a layer of plastic over the trench to allow us to re-open it easily next year when the new season's work starts.

Limes Congress

The dig may be over, but there is no rest for the wicked. Although most of us are trying to grab a well-earned rest before commencing the post-excavation analysis of this season's fieldwork, there is still plenty to do. Today the site was visited en masse by all the delegates from the 21st Limes Congress which is currently taking place in Newcastle. This is the major international conference on Roman frontiers and has brought in scholars from across Europe and beyond; just looking at the programme I can see that there are people from Germany, Austria, France, Holland, Italy, Israel and many other places. These are the leading researchers in their fields; not surprisingly the prospect of their visit was a little intimidating! However, at the end of the day having given four site tours to a total of over 200 visitors I can say all went very well. They were interested and asked some searching questions. We also got plenty of positive feedback, which was very gratifying. There were also some extremely useful suggestions- two separate people noted that the site looked very like Barrack 13 from Housesteads- I'm looking forward to chasing this up further when the forthcoming publication of the Housesteads excavations arrives in the library.

It wasn't all just entertaining visitors today though. I had a useful chat with one of my colleagues in the Department of Archaeology today about the potential of scientific dating on the site. One of the challenges we are presented with is the difficulty of dating any activity between the end of the Roman period and the 12th/13th century. This is due to the general lack of diagnostic artefactual material in this period (apart from the limited quantities of Anglo-Saxon metalwork that is found north of the Tees). This is further complicated by the fact that any early or indeed late medieval activity on site will churn up earlier Roman layers incorporating Roman objects in later deposits. The practical upshot of this is that 5th century layers will only contain 4th century (and earlier)datable material in them. This means we have to cast around for alternative ways of dating the late activity. Obviously one potential is C14 dating - we have a number of probable 5th century features which contain enough bone for radiocarbon dating. However, we also have a number of areas of burning on some of the floor surfaces within the building which we'd like to date. However, these consist only of burning and scorching to the stones themselves; ploughing and worm action has removed any charcoal and ash from these features and they are not directly associated with other datable features. They could be sub-Roman or early medieval; equally they could be 15th century. So, how do we date them? Well one possible approach is thermoluminescence dating (TL). I won't explain the science as I don't understand myself in much detail. The key factor is that the sandstone slabs on which some of these hearths have been placed contain quartz crystals which can be used for TL dating. So, next week I'll be taking one of these slabs back to the Department for an initial assessment for its potential. If we get good results we'll look for funding to pay for a series of dates (it costs £500 a shot if any of our readers are feeling generous!). I'll report back on this further soon.