A follow-up excavation at a site near Willersey in Gloucestershire where a pair of rare Roman cavalry swords from the 2nd/3rd century A.D. were discovered by a metal detectorist two years ago has uncovered the remains of an Iron Age settlement and what appears to be a grand Roman villa built over it. This opens up the possibility that the swords were deliberately buried in the courtyard or garden of the villa to keep them out of the hands of raiders.
Excavations have found evidence of settlements spanning several centuries, including three, possibly four, Iron Age ring ditches measuring up to 18.5 metres (60ft) in diameter, a spokesperson from Historic England said.
A substantial rectangular enclosure measuring five metres wide (16ft) and remains of Roman limestone buildings – perhaps representing a winged villa – were also discovered.
Following months of meticulous digging by archaeologists in the area, Roman building materials including ceramic roofing and box flue tiles, and painted wall plaster were dug up.
The work was funded by Historic England and undertaken in partnership with Cotswold Archaeology.
Mr Barnes added: “This new evidence will help us to understand more about what happened around the period of the Roman Conquest, which must have been a tumultuous time.”
Found less than an inch under the surface by Glenn Manning in March 2023, the spathae (Roman long swords) were buried still inside their wooden scabbards. Only traces of the scabbards remain, but the chapes — decorated bronze fittings from the bottom of the scabbard — survive. This was an unprecedented find in Britain. Only four spathae are known to have been found in the UK, and the only other time two of them have been found together was in a double burial in Canterbury. The swords were thrown with their owners into a pit inside the city walls, almost certainly the hastily-concealed corpora delicti of a double murder.
The swords were X-rayed by archaeological conservators at the Historic England lab in Fort Cumberland in Portsmouth. One of them was discovered to have the zig-zag design typical of pattern welding on the blade, marking it as an extremely expensive import owned by someone of high status. This patterning was completely invisible to the naked eye due to the thick corrosion layer on the sword, and even after conservation it cannot be seen. The other sword is plain.
While the spathae were cavalry weapons, it doesn’t mean they belonged to soldiers when they were buried. They did not have the shoulder belts that Roman cavalry wore to carry the swords, and it was legal for any citizen to own such weapons. People with the wealth to acquire these swords would also have need to defend it against brigands and marauders.
The conserved swords will go on public display at the Corinium Museum in Cirencester on August 2nd.
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