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History => Ancient and Medieval History => Topic started by: Duncan Head on January 07, 2020, 08:34:03 AM

Title: Unusual graves in Roman Somerset
Post by: Duncan Head on January 07, 2020, 08:34:03 AM
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jan/07/archaeologists-discover-graves-high-status-romans-somerton-somerset

High-status, hobnail boots (so military?), graves built of stone slabs.
Title: Re: Unusual graves in Roman Somerset
Post by: Patrick Waterson on January 07, 2020, 09:08:54 AM
Would a Roman of the 1st century AD rather be cremated?  I understand this was the norm in Rome until about the 4th century AD; whether this would apply in the far-flung fringes of the Empire might be debatable, but Romans tended to be very custom-based traditional people.

The Somerton burials evidently died with their boots on, or had them added thereafter, which suggests the wearing of caligae, which implies soldiery, but was hobnailed footwear unique to legionaries?

The discovery of only one coin makes me suspect these burials were not Roman (or that a maximum of one might have been).  Roman tradition placed a coin in the mouth of the deceased (the viaticum or 'Charon's obol') so he could pay the ferryman; would this tradition have so swiftly been abandoned?