Durocornovium was a Roman town in Britain, situated on the Roman road between Corinium Dobunnorum (Cirencester) and Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester). In many ways Durocornovium was a typical small Roman town.
The town, encompassing around 25 hectares at its peak, was located at Nythe Farm, east of the A419 adjacent to modern Swindon, although the site is usually associated with the village of Wanborough to the southeast. The farmland is a designated flood plain and has a history of inundation, alleviated by modern drainage, based on clay and gravel beds.
1692 – Workmen uncovered an earthen pot containing two thousand coins dated no later than the reign of Commodus
1862 – Sir R. C. Hoare made a visit to the site and found it had every mark of Roman residence, in coins, figured bricks, tiles, but unfortunately, had not preserved them.
1968 – A stone building found plus cobbled surfaces and post holes.
1970 – Inconclusive dig in areas suffering from post-Roman disturbance.
1976 – The most extensive dig which allowed a chronology for the town to be created.
Duro- is a Celtic word meaning "door" (cognate at the Proto-Indo-European level with English door and Latin forum) and, by extension, "enclosed market, square, forum, walled town, village".,
Cornovium may either be a common noun in Brittonic meaning "horn, peninsula", or derive from the British Cornovii people of the Midlands, based around Wroxeter; alternately, we may have or an identically named tribe from the area of Durocornovium. There is, however, a mention of a Cohors I Cornovium in Roman records and suggestions have been made that they were connected with the site, though no evidence exists.
A minor tributary of the Cole, which rises at Chiseldon and flows past Durocornovium, was known variously in late Saxon charters as Dorcyn, Dorcan, Dorternebrok, probably derived from a British form *Dorce; this stream may have given its name to the settlement.
The site shows evidence of Neolithic and Bronze Age farming With the Iron Age and the creation of hill forts in the area there's little evidence of habitation, and the only datable item is a coin of Eppillus who lived during the late 1st century BC to early 1st century AD. He was the son of Commius, king of the pro-Roman Atrebates tribe and is known to have controlled a mint at modern Silchester.
The original development is assumed to be military in nature and dates from the period when Roman legionaries built the road through the area, backed by the discovery of material dating from the reign of Nero. One building from this period has been identified, an apparently short-lived construction showing signs of iron working or blacksmithing, perhaps indicative of a mutatio (horse station).
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
Durocornovium was a Roman town in Britain, situated on the Roman road between Corinium Dobunnorum (Cirencester) and Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester). It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a settlement site from the Roman period in Britain.
Durocornovium is classified as a Roman settlement — a civilian site in the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer. Roman Britain's archaeology encompasses thousands of sites ranging from legionary fortresses and marching camps to villas, temples and towns.
Several Roman sites lie within a short distance, including Site of Roman town, W of Wanborough House (0.5 km), Roman villa 530m west of Stanton House (5 km), Roman rural sanctuary on Groundwell Ridge, east of Lady Lane (6.6 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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