Lindow Manchester

Last Saturday I came into the Museum to show the Stoke on Trent Museum Archaeological Society the Lindow Man exhibition. I also showed them  the recently discovered Roman altar from Manchester in our new Manchester Gallery. After lunch I took them to the partially reconstructed Roman fort at Castlefield.

The usual suspects: Stoke on Trent Museum Archaeological Society at Castlefield

Although this is quite old and some of the interpretation panels and mural are looking a bit worn, it is still  impressive. If the reassessment of Lindow Man’s radio-carbon dates is correct and he lived sometime in the later 1st century AD he would have been aware of the earth and timber  precursor of the stone fort. One of the Roman altars now displayed in the Mediterranean Gallery mentions a vexillation or detachment of Noricans and Raetians (from eastern central Europe) who garrisoned the fort at a later date. Aelius Victor, who set up the altar to the Mother Goddesses perhaps

Members of the Stoke on Trent Museum Archeological Society examine the Roman altar from Manchester in the newly-opened Manchester Gallery.

some time in the 2nd century AD, is likely to have been a German.  The influx of soldiers and their dependants, as well as camp followers and suppliers of services that traditionally ’soften the rigours of a harsh military life’, must have had a significant effect on native people.  Could the late 1st or early 2nd century bog bodies from Lindow Moss and Worsley Moss be part of the native people’s reaffirmation of their culture in the face of sudden change?  The key challenge is to reconcile human sacrifice (if that is what is happening) with the presence of the Roman administration, which is supposed to stamp it out.