03-03-2010, 02:46 AM
Quote:(2) Stables: I have explained that, although archaeologists have always tried to identify stables in Roman forts, the realisation that cavalrymen actually shared accommodation with their horses is a relatively new one, and stems directly from recent work at Wallsend. Johnson was not psychic; she could not have known what exciting discoveries would be made at Wallsend. This means that, unfortunately, her plan of the fort is out-of-date; for a better one, see Roman Auxiliary Forts p. 48, which shows the crucial soakaway pits in the barrack rooms. (Also, Brian Delf has created a splendid full-colour reconstruction of this feature on p. 50, Plate E.)
Anyone who thinks that Johnson "refers to the combined barrack/stable at the second century Fort at Dormagen in Germany" is mistaken. Although it turned out that such a combined barrack/stable existed at Dormagen, in 1983 it was still usual to interpret the (only fragmentarily known) building as a stable. With the benefit of hindsight, we can see that Brough-on-Noe probably has the same arrangement, but no-one would have guessed this in 1983. These seemed to be stables, not the combined barrack/stable that we now recognise.
Point of information, Mr Speaker! [ducks to avoid hurled vegetables, mule excrement, and old bottles of Johnson's auxiliary baby lotion]
Whilst the Dormagen excavations were the first to explicitly sample for phosphate analysis and identify stables, Wallsend was not the first to identify the split barrack/stable. Peter Connolly had illustrated one of these in his 1988 Tiberius Claudius Maximus. The Cavalryman (spread on pages 16-17), but Wallsend was not re-excavated (for display) until 1997/8 (with Millennium lottery money) - the original Daniels excavations did not pick up on this important fact (when I was working on the Corbridge report I shared an office with the chap doing the Wallsend one... which has yet to appear, but that's another story) - so the split stable/barrack identification there came after (and was indeed derived from) the realisation of the significance of Dormagen, largely due to the excavations at Krefeld-Gellep. There is more on this in a paper by Sebastian Sommer* who attributes the popularisation of the split stable/barrack to Junkelmann and Connolly.
Coincidentally, the previous paper** in that volume is on a villa rustica possibly used as a military stud (see my earlier comments). So there you go.
Mike Bishop
Kemkes, M. and Scheuerbrand, J. (eds) 1999: Fragen zur römischen Reiterei, Kolloquium zur Ausstellung "Reiter wie Statuen aus Erz. Die Römische Reiterei am Limes zwischen Patrouille und Parade" im Limesmuseum Aalen am 25.-26.02.1998. Stuttgart
*Sommer, S. 1999: 'Wohin mit den Pferden? Stall-baracken sowie Aufmarsch- und Übungsplätze in römischer Zeit' in Kemkes and Scheuerbrandt 1999, 84-90
** Balle, G. 1999: 'Die Villa rustica von Bietigheim "Weilerlen" - ein Gestüt für Militärpferde?' in Kemkes and Scheuerbrandt 1999, 81-3
