Durnovaria

Coordinates: 50°42′54″N 2°26′13″W / 50.715°N 2.437°W / 50.715; -2.437
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Durnovaria
Surviving fragment of the town walls of Durnovaria
Durnovaria is located in England
Durnovaria
Location of Durnovaria within England
LocationDorchester, United Kingdom
Coordinates50°42′54″N 2°26′13″W / 50.715°N 2.437°W / 50.715; -2.437
TypeRoman city
History
Foundedc. 70 AD
Abandonedlikely shortly after c. 410 AD
PeriodsRoman Empire

Durnovaria is a suggested spelling for the

Brythonic, it is suggested that the first element in the name, *durno- may mean "fist" like (Welsh dwrn[1] ‘fist, knob’) and the second may be related to Old Irish fáir ~ fóir denoting a confined area[2] or den. A simpler amendment (one letter instead of two) would lead to *Duronovaria, making this place one of up to 18 ancient British names that contain Duro- and mostly occur at river crossings, while -novaria has two possible ancient parallels in Britain associated with river junctions. That analysis would perfectly fit the geographical situation of Dorchester.[citation needed
]

Romans at Maiden Castle

The pre-Roman population centre in the area appears to have been at the

Romano-British temple
.

Roman Dorchester

Map of Durnovaria around 70 AD

The site of present-day Dorchester may have originally been a small garrison fort for the

henge monument, was converted for use as an amphitheatre. The third century saw the first replacement of timber buildings with stone ones, an unexpectedly late development in an area with several good sources of building stone.[6] There were many fine homes for rich families and their excavated mosaic floors suggest a mosaic school of art had a workshop in the town, members of which seem to have travelled in the area to execute mosaic floors in villas away from Durnovaria itself.[7] A large late-Roman and Christian cemetery has been excavated at Poundbury just to the west of the town, but little is known of Durnovaria's decline after the departure of the Roman administration. The name, however, survived to become the Anglo-Saxon Dornwaraceaster and modern 'Dorchester'. The residents of modern day Dorchester are known as Durnovarians.[8]

Extant remains

The town still has some Roman features, including part of the town walls and the foundations of a Roman town house, which are freely accessible near County Hall. There are many Roman finds in the County Museum. The Romans built an aqueduct to supply the town with water, traces remain at nearby Whitfield Farm and approaching Poundbury tunnel on the Dorchester - Yeovil railway. Near the town centre is Maumbury Rings, an ancient British earthwork converted by the Romans for use as an amphitheatre, and to the north west is Poundbury Hill, another pre-Roman fortification.

Part of a Roman road, known today as High West Street, exists underneath the Dorset Museum, and a portion of it is displayed within the museum. The road ran through the centre of Durnovaria.

There is little evidence to show whether or not Durnovaria survived into the post-Roman era: Gildas' record of a tradition, given in De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae iii, of twenty-eight cities and sundry castles of former happy times was not provided with any names. Surviving northern boundaries of the administrative region, or civitas that included Dorset, reached as far as Selwood, and mark the county division between Somerset and Wiltshire to this day.[9] In the sub-Roman period, as urban centres were progressively abandoned, the centres of administration and justice, such as they were, generally removed to fortified strongholds. The city's site is attested as Dornwaraceaster in the ninth century, elided to produce 'Dornaceaster, first recorded in 937.[10]

Gallery

  • Roman ruins in Dorchester (Durnovaria), Dorset, England (Roman Town House)
    Roman ruins in Dorchester (Durnovaria), Dorset, England (Roman Town House)
  • Excavations at Maiden Castle in October 1937. Photograph by Major George Allen (1891–1940).
    Excavations at Maiden Castle in October 1937. Photograph by Major George Allen (1891–1940).
  • Burials at the war cemetery at Maiden Castle, which date to the late Iron Age, c. 100 BC - 43 AD
    Burials at the war cemetery at Maiden Castle, which date to the late Iron Age, c. 100 BC - 43 AD
  • The 4th century Fordington mosaic from a town house in Durnovaria
    The 4th century Fordington mosaic from a town house in Durnovaria
  • Roman town house ruins
    Roman town house ruins
  • Preserved fragment of the Roman road that is known today as High West Street
    Preserved fragment of the Roman road that is known today as High West Street

Notes

  1. ^ "Welsh-English / English-Welsh On-line Dictionary".
  2. ^ http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/sengoidelc/duil-belrai/lorg.php?facal=fóir&seorsa=Gaidhlig [dead link]
  3. ^ "The fact is nowhere attested", C. E. Stevens noted in 1937, adding that Ptolemy, perhaps using a lost pre-occupation source, gives Durium (Geography ii.3.13) as the one town of the Durotriges,; see Stevens, "Gildas and the Civitates of Britain" The English Historical Review 52 No. 206 (April 1937:193-203) pp 202-03, note 3.
  4. ^ Sampled shafts in Greyhound Yard, Dorchester, in advance of rebuilding, published by Woodward et al., 1993, were reidentified as on-going ritual deposits, notably of sacrificed puppies and black carrion birds— crows, ravens and jackdaws— summarised by Peter Woodward and Ann Woodward, "Dedicating the Town: Urban Foundation Deposits in Roman Britain" World Archaeology 36.1 (March 2004:68-86) and compared with other Romano-British sites.
  5. ^ Details are in R.J.C. Smith, Excavations at County Hall, Dorchester, Dorset, 1988, in the North-West Quarter of Durnovaria, (Wessex Archaeology Report 4) Salisbury 1993.
  6. Purbeck Limestone, Lias limestone and Hamstone from Ham Hill
    .
  7. ^ D. J. Smith, "The mosaic pavements", in A.L.F. Rivet, ed., The Roman Villa in Britain (1969:71-125).
  8. ^ Hogger, Harry. "Dorchester named as one of the happiest towns in country". Dorset Echo. Dorset Echo. Retrieved 28 July 2022.
  9. ^ Bruce Eagles, "Britons and Saxons on the Eastern Boundary of the Civitas Durotrigum" Britannia 35 (2004:234-240) passim traces clues of identifiable former tribal arrangements reflected in the eastern Roman and post-Roman boundary.
  10. ^ Anton Fägersten, Place-Names in Dorset (Uppsala) 1933:1-2, noted by F. M. Stenton, "Presidential Address: The Historical Bearing of Place-Name Studies; England in the Sixth Century" Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 4th Ser., 21 (1939:1-19) p. 6 note 1.

Further reading

External links

Media related to Durnovaria at Wikimedia Commons

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