Cunetio

Cunetio was a large walled town located in a river valley of the River Kennet in modern-day Wiltshire, England. The settlement, which is near the village of Mildenhall, was occupied from the 2nd century CE by Romano-British people until the post-Roman period. It was abandoned in the early 5th century.

Cunetio

Cunetio
Cunetio within the River Kennet valley
Location of Cunetio in Wiltshire
Location	Situated on a Roman road between Durocornovium and Venta Belgarum
Region	Britannia
Coordinates	51°25′25.10″N 1°41′26.14″W
Altitude	130 m (427 ft)
Type	Walled Settlement
Part of	Britannia Superior
Length	265 m (869 ft)
Width	213 m (699 ft)
Area	30 hectares (74 acres)
History
Founded	2nd century CE
Abandoned	Late 5th century CE
Periods	Roman Britain
Cultures	Romano-British
Site notes
Discovered	1940s
Excavation dates	1960 - 2000s
Archaeologists	Wessex Archaeology Time Team
Condition	no extant remains
Management	Scheduled monument
Public access	no

The entire town lay undiscovered until it was identified from aerial photos in the 1940s. Archaeological excavations have revealed that the town was a substantial urban area defended by large masonry walls. Artefacts recovered from the site include kitchenware, personal effects, and two hoards of Roman coinage.

History

A silver Roman coin found in the Cunetio Hoard.

The Cunetio site has been known since the 19th century, when local antiquarians conducted sporadic excavations. The full scale and importance of the site, however, was identified from aerial photos of crop marks taken in 1940, and the site has been sporadically excavated since the 1950s alongside the continuation of aerial photography to further map the site[1]. In the 1960s, a small coin hoard was found, followed in 1978 by the much larger Cunetio Hoard of over 55,000 coins. The site was dug and geophysically surveyed in 2009 by Channel 4's archaeological television programme Time Team, which found many more coins and other objects.[2]

The town grew around a mansio that had been built near a crossroad of two minor Roman roads. As the town grew, it developed a regular grid of streets and stone buildings on its eastern side but retained less regular and substantial structures in the west part. The settlement's original defences were earthworks and an outer ditch; in the 4th century CE, these were replaced by massive stone walls 4 m (13 ft) wide, a large western gateway, and 17 semi-octagonal, external wall-towers. The masonry walls ran inside and parallel with the original defences on the east side but outside of them on the south and west sides. The stone towers were approximately every 36.7 m (120 ft) apart. Excavations of the west gate show it was flanked by two towers and possibly possessed a set of iron-gates similar to a portcullis, because grooves were found in the remains of the towers' footings.

Archaeological examinations of the site do not reveal why Cunetio deserved so much expenditure on upgrading its defences, an act that was a very rare occurrence for inland Britannia at the time when most Roman military engineering projects were focused on the Saxon Shore forts. Two theories have been suggested: first that the town was being converted into a Legionary fortress to reestablish Roman authority in this part of the province of Britannia. Second, that the improvement work was being orchestrated by an ambitious local British governor – the type of man who would, within a generation or so, be setting himself up as a war-lord or regional chieftain. Interpretation therefore swings between the Roman Empire re-establishing its authority after various rebellions and uprisings, or Roman authority breaking down.[3]

In the 3rd century, the town was a prosperous settlement,[4] and by the start of the 4th, it had become a hub of villas.[5] It has also been suggested that the town was reorganised as a centre of taxation, administration, and military functions later in the 4th century AD, coinciding with the addition of the defensive stone wall[6]. However, the Roman withdrawal from Britain c. 410 caused Cunetio to rapidly decline in importance, until it was totally abandoned.[7][8]

Notes

1. Corney, M. 1997. The Origins and Development of the 'Small Town' of Cunetio, Mildenhall, Wiltshire. Britannia. 28. 337-350.
2. "Time Team Series 17 | Episode 7 | Cunetio". Channel 4. Retrieved 25 February 2020.
3. Hinton, David A. (2017). "Cunetio, Wiltshire: archaeology and history" (PDF). Royal Archaeological Institute. Retrieved 25 February 2020.
4. Hostetter, Eric; Howe, Thomas Noble; Allison, E. P. (1997). The Romano-British Villa at Castle Copse, Great Bedwyn. Indiana University Press. p. 45. ISBN 978-0-253-32802-1.
5. Bland, Roger; Besly, Edward; Burnett, Andrew (2019). The Cunetio and Normanby Hoards: Roger Bland, Edward Besly and Andrew Burnett, with notes to aid identification by Sam Moorhead. Spink Books. p. 173. ISBN 978-1-912667-33-8.
6. Corney, M. 1997. p. 349
7. Pohl, Walter; Gantner, Clemens; Grifoni, Cinzia; Pollheimer-Mohaupt, Marianne (2018). Transformations of Romanness: Early Medieval Regions and Identities. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. ISBN 978-3-11-059756-1.
8. Davison, Steve (1 June 2015). Walking in the North Wessex Downs. Cicerone Press Limited. ISBN 978-1-78362-212-2.

External links

• Cunetio – roman-britain.org, archived 28 February 2014
• Time Team episode on Cunetio – YouTube