32. Roma wearing an Attic helmet, seated towards the left. The goddess is being crowned with a laurel wreath by a Victory on her right hand. For type compare Henig 1978, App 85.

This gem shows a pre-Hadrianic cult image but is probably Antonine owing to its execution in the 'small grooves style'. The face shows considerable wear.

Remaining dimensions 13 x 10 x 4 mm. Nicolo (blue on black onyx).

Found by J.A. Cruickshank 1984. Pl ?

33. Satyr walking left, holding a bunch of grapes. Well worn through use or perhaps this impression is the result of using a worn mould in casting it. Probably Antonine.

Nicolo glass. Found by J.W. Elliot, 1985.

This gem together with No 31 from the previous paper, was lost while on loan to a Roman Exhibition in Eyemouth Museum.

34. Maenad blowing the double pipes (auloi). An exact parallel can be found from Aquileia (Sena Chiesa 1966, No 449.) The style of cutting is strongly classicising and could be Hadrianic or slightly earlier. Set in remains of an iron ring of Type II.

Dimensions 13 x 11 x ? mm. Nicolo.

Found by Mrs C. Cruickshank, 1986. Pl ?

35. A goddess (Fortuna, Concordia or Abundantia) dressed in chiton, holding patera and cornucopia. This gem probably dates from the early Antonine period.

The type is already represented at Trimontium in a red jasper gem from the Mason Collection, now in the National Museum of Scotland. See Henig Corpus No 335.

Dimensions 10.5 x 8 x 4 mm Cornelian.

Found by J.A.Cruickshank, 1988. Pl?

36. Bust of Caracalla facing left. The portrait on the gem is that which appears on the coins of Caracalla as Augustus under Severus in the years 205 to 209 before he grew a beard.

Compare the red jasper intaglio found at South Shields described as 'the finest in the whole group. The figure is that of young Caracalla in the character of Mercury'.(Collingwood Bruce,1885). Although that gem is now lost, drawings and wax impressions were made (Henig, 1986, 378 fig 4 and pl LXIV d.).

Dimensions 18 x 11 x 2 mm. Red Jasper.

Found by J. W. Elliot, Feb 1998. Pl ?

Comment.

Of the five gemstones detailed above, four are what could be expected to be found on a fort reckoned to have been deserted around 180 AD.

However the Caracalla gem found inside the fort near the north gate, gives greater credence to the suggestion that Newstead was 'perhaps the point where Septimus Severus and his generals concentrated their forces for the big push into hostile territory' (Birley 1988).

A photographic enlargement of No 29 from our previous paper, suggests that this sliver could also have an early third century dating. Third century pottery has been found on the site by fieldwalkers ( Hartley 1972) and recently a coin of Severus and two of Julia Domna were found west of Newstead village (unpublished).

Taken together, these small finds indicate that the Trimontium fort was occupied longer than originally thought; or that it enjoyed a brief phase of military activity during the Severan campaigns in Britain although no Severan reconstruction has been noted during meticulous excavation.

Additionally the Caracalla gem gives further weight to the proposal that there was a workshop operating in Britain between c 208 and 212 when the province was the de facto centre of the Empire. It is possible, even probable, that the workshop had an official basis making 'loyalty tokens' to be presented by the imperial secretariat to influential army officers and other supporters of the dynasty. ( See Henig 1997, 284 -5 No 87 discussing a contemporary intaglio from Birdoswald showing Caracalla's younger brother Geta.)

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank Mr and Mrs Cruickshank for the publication rights of their finds; again to Mr Cruickshank for his excellent photographs and Debbie Mabon for re-working the original map of findspots.

Martin Henig, Institute of Archaeology, University of Oxford.

No 36. Caracalla. 18 x 11 x 2mm.