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Arbeia is the remains of a large Roman
Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC....
 fort
Castra

The Latin language word castra, with its singular castrum, was used by the ancient Romans to mean buildings or plots of land reserved to or constructed for use as a military defensive position....
 in South Shields
South Shields

South Shields is a coastal town in Tyne and Wear, England, located at the mouth of the River Tyne, England. The town has a population of about 90,000 and is part of the Metropolitan_borough of South Tyneside, which includes the riverside towns of Jarrow and Hebburn and the villages of Boldon, Cleadon and Whitburn....
, Tyne & Wear
Tyne and Wear

Tyne and Wear is a metropolitan county in North East England England around the mouths of the Rivers River Tyne and River Wear. It came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972....
, England
England

native_name =|conventional_long_name = England|common_name = England|image_flag = Flag of England.svg|image_coat = England COA.svg|symbol_type = Royal Coat of Arms...
 which has been partially reconstructed. It was first excavated in the 1870s and all modern building on the site were cleared in the 1970s. It is now managed by Tyne and Wear Museums
Tyne and Wear Museums

Tyne and Wear Museums is a regional group of United Kingdom National Museums of the United Kingdom located across the Tyne and Wear area of north-east England....
.

fort stands on the Lawe Top, overlooking the River Tyne
River Tyne

The River Tyne is a river in England. It is formed by the confluence of two rivers, the North Tyne and the South Tyne. These two rivers converge at Warden Rock near Hexham in Northumberland at a place dubbed 'The Meeting of the Waters'....
. Founded around 120
120

Events...
 A.D., it later became the maritime supply fort for Hadrian's Wall
Hadrian's Wall

Hadrian's Wall is a Rock and Sod fortification built by the Roman Empire across the width of what is now northern England. Begun in AD 122, during the rule of emperor Hadrian, it was the middle of three such fortifications built across Great Britain, the first being from the River Clyde to the River Forth under Agricola and the last the Ant...
, and contains the only permanent stone-built granaries yet found in Britain.






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Arbeia is the remains of a large Roman
Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC....
 fort
Castra

The Latin language word castra, with its singular castrum, was used by the ancient Romans to mean buildings or plots of land reserved to or constructed for use as a military defensive position....
 in South Shields
South Shields

South Shields is a coastal town in Tyne and Wear, England, located at the mouth of the River Tyne, England. The town has a population of about 90,000 and is part of the Metropolitan_borough of South Tyneside, which includes the riverside towns of Jarrow and Hebburn and the villages of Boldon, Cleadon and Whitburn....
, Tyne & Wear
Tyne and Wear

Tyne and Wear is a metropolitan county in North East England England around the mouths of the Rivers River Tyne and River Wear. It came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972....
, England
England

native_name =|conventional_long_name = England|common_name = England|image_flag = Flag of England.svg|image_coat = England COA.svg|symbol_type = Royal Coat of Arms...
 which has been partially reconstructed. It was first excavated in the 1870s and all modern building on the site were cleared in the 1970s. It is now managed by Tyne and Wear Museums
Tyne and Wear Museums

Tyne and Wear Museums is a regional group of United Kingdom National Museums of the United Kingdom located across the Tyne and Wear area of north-east England....
.

Original fort

The fort stands on the Lawe Top, overlooking the River Tyne
River Tyne

The River Tyne is a river in England. It is formed by the confluence of two rivers, the North Tyne and the South Tyne. These two rivers converge at Warden Rock near Hexham in Northumberland at a place dubbed 'The Meeting of the Waters'....
. Founded around 120
120

Events...
 A.D., it later became the maritime supply fort for Hadrian's Wall
Hadrian's Wall

Hadrian's Wall is a Rock and Sod fortification built by the Roman Empire across the width of what is now northern England. Begun in AD 122, during the rule of emperor Hadrian, it was the middle of three such fortifications built across Great Britain, the first being from the River Clyde to the River Forth under Agricola and the last the Ant...
, and contains the only permanent stone-built granaries yet found in Britain. It was occupied until the Romans left Britain in the 5th century.

"Arbeia" means "fort of the Arab troops", referring to the fact that part of its garrison at one time was a squadron of Syrian boatmen from the Tigris. We also know that a squadron of Spanish cavalry, the First Asturian, was stationed there. It was common for forts to be manned by units originally from elsewhere in the empire, though often enough these would assimilate and end up by recruiting locally.

Museum

Two monuments in the museum at Arbeia testify to the cosmopolitan nature of its shifting population. One commemorates Regina, a British woman of the Catuvellauni
Catuvellauni

The Catuvellauni were a Celtic/Belgae tribe or state of south-eastern Prehistoric Britain before the Roman conquest of Britain.The fortunes of the Catuvellauni and their kings before the conquest can be traced through numismatic evidence and scattered references in classical histories....
 tribe (from what is now Kent
Kent

Kent is a Counties of England in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the River Thames estuary....
), who was first the slave, then the freedwoman and wife of Barates, a Palmyrene
Palmyra

Palmyra was in ancient times an important city of central Syria, located in an oasis 215 km northeast of Damascus and 120 km southwest of the Euphrates....
 (now part of Syria
Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is an Arab-majority country in Southwest Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Israel to the southwest, Jordan to the south, Iraq to the east, and Turkey to the north....
) merchant who, evidently missing her greatly, set up a gravestone after she died at the age of 30. (Barates himself is buried at the nearby fort of Corbridge). The second commemorates Victor, another former slave, freed by Numerianus of the First Asturian cavalry, who also arranged his funeral ("plantissime": with all devotion) when Victor died at the age of 20. The stone records that Victor was "of the Moorish nation".

The museum also holds an altarpiece to a previously unknown god and a tablet with the name of the Emperor Alexander Severus
Alexander Severus

Marcus Aurelius Severus Alexander, commonly called Alexander Severus, was the last Roman Emperors of the Severan dynasty, having succeeded, as heir apparent, his despised cousin, the eighteen year old Elagabalus who had been murdered along with his mother by his own guards—and as a mark of contempt, had their remains cast into...
 (d. 235) chiselled off.

Reconstruction

A Roman gatehouse and barracks have been reconstructed on their original foundations. The gatehouse holds many displays related to the history of the fort, and its upper levels provide an overlook of the archaeological site.

External links