|
A ROMAN MILESTONE FROM ABER
A discovery made during the summer of 1959 has added yet another milestone to those discovered on the line of the Roman road from KANOVIUM to SEGONTIUM, bringing the total now known on that route up to five, or six if that from Cae'r bythod is included.1
While ploughing in a field belonging to Madryn Farm, Mr. Wynn Griffith turned up a large stone. He noticed that it apparently had lettering cut on it, and consulted Mr. E. W. Jones, the owner of the farm, and his neighbour Mr. T. J. Owen of Pen y Bryn, who agreed with him. Mr. Owen notified Professor Glyn Roberts, who informed the writer. As a result, the stone was transported first to the offices of the Royal Commission on Ancient Monuments (Wales) where it was cleaned and examined ; then, thanks to the kindness of Mr. Jones, it was deposited in the Museum of Welsh Antiquities at Bangor. The greatest credit is due to Mr. Griffith, Mr. Jones and Mr. Owen, both for their public-spirited action which has resulted in the preservation of the stone and for their very acute observation in noticing the letters, which are not conspicuous.
The point at which the stone was discovered is given by N.G.R. SH 66887338, 1 m. 1 furlong S.W. of Llanfairfechan Church, and 500 yds. E.S.W. of Madryn Farm. There can be little doubt that it stood beside the Roman road from Caerhun to Caernarvon. What was presumably the next stone to the east, that marking the eighth mile from KANOVIUM, was discovered in 1883, 1300 yds away to the S.E. The actual course of the road is not certain here, but the conformation of the ground would make a direct route very unlikely indeed. It is difficult, though, to suppose that the necessary deviations would add more than 100 or 200 yds. to the total distance. Since all stones found between this point and Caerhun have been located at very nearly their correct spacing, it is possible that the position of the newly discovered stone was fixed by measurement from Caernarvon.2
The stone is of hard laminated igneous rock. It is now 46 inches long, but one end has been broken off. Two adjacent faces are nearly flat, and carry inscriptions, and the back is curved. The stone tapers irregularly from 13 inches wide at the broken end to about 9 inches at the other, where it ends in a rough blunt point; its thickness is generally rather less than its width. Except by the accident that both are cut on the same stone, the two inscriptions seem to be unrelated. One is cut on a face, grey in colour, formed by the surface of a lamina. The other is cut on a surface which cuts across the laminae ; it, like the remainder of the stone, is brown. The letters are carelessly cut capitals, without serifs. Those on the grey face are rather more sharply cut than those on the brown face, and the strokes are rather narrower and look less weathered. The letters in both inscriptions vary in height from Ii to 2i or 3 inches ; those on the grey face are on an average rather smaller than those on the brown face. In the writer's view, it seems likely that the grey face had been formed by splitting off a part of the stone, perhaps taking with it a letter from each line of the inscription on the brown face, which appears older and more weathered ; it should be emphasised, though, that this is a purely subjective impression, incapable of proof.
Reading the inscriptions has presented some difficulty. The lettering is poor, and not very deeply cut, and the surfaces have in places been damaged by weathering and by impact from ploughing ; on the brown face, also, the uneven weathering of the edges of the laminae has produced vertical grooves which cannot always be distinguished with certainty from artificial cuts. The stone is therefore one which requires personal examination by an expert epigraphist. Unfortunately, it has been impossible to arrange this, and the writer has no claim to any sort of epigraphic knowledge. The stone was examined 3 under oblique light from various directions, and a measured drawing made of what appear to be the artificial cuts. From this drawing, combined with squeezes and photographs, Mr. R. P. Wright has been able to obtain a reading from each inscription. His report is given at the end of this note. The drawing reproduced here is taken from that sent to Mr. Wright, and has not been corrected to agree with his readings. In the writer's opinion (not accepted by Mr. Wright) the inscription on the brown face should probably be read the opposite way up to that on the grey face, i.e. the letters 0 I form the first line. This allows for insertion in the ground a length of at least 10 inches plus whatever length is broken off, whereas if the inscription is taken the same way up as that on the grey face only 7 inches is available at most, narrow and bluntly pointed. It may be noted that apart from the letter L, which cannot easily be made out on the stone, all other letters on the brown face can be read either way up. In either case, no satisfactory solution has been found.
Unfortunately, owing to the loss of the upper part of the inscription on the grey face, and with it the name of the emperor concerned, the stone cannot be dated. It is hoped that the missing fragment may one day day be recovered.
The reading of the inscriptions 4 by R. P. Wright, M.A., F.S.A. is as follows:
The inscription on the grey face reads:
...J 0 | PIOFE I LAVG | PMC | V. | TRPO[ . |..
which can in part be expanded as
Pio Fel(ict) Aug(usto) P(antificf) M(aximo) C(onsuli (?)) V(??)
Tr(ibunicia) Po(testate) . . .
To , Pious, Fortunate, Augustus, Pontifex Maximus,
Consul (?).... with Tribunician power . . .
The inscription on the brown face reads:
LI. | NO | ... |.l. | ON. | M. | 0. | IO
No satisfactory solution can be suggested.
A. H. A. Hogg.
1 Caerns. Inv. I, pp. bnciii—iv. // p. xiii; and Journal of Roman Studia
xlvi (1956) p. 148, No. n.
2 As provisionally suggested by Mr. R. P. Wright, in lit.
3. By the writer, assisted by the other members of the staff of the Royal Commission on Ancient Monuments in Wales and Monmouthshire.
4 this has already been published briefly in Journal of Roman Studie (1960) P238 The reading is provisional Mr Wright hopes soon to make a personal examination of the stone
|
