Shepton Mallet was a small roadside settlement (a "small town" or vicus) on the Fosse Way in Somerset, occupied from the mid-1st century AD through to the late 4th or early 5th century. It developed as a linear settlement along the road, with evidence of timber buildings, stone structures, industrial activity, and an associated cemetery, lying roughly midway between Aquae Sulis (Bath) and Lindinis (Ilchester).
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
The settlement functioned as a local economic and possibly market node on a major arterial route, serving travellers and the surrounding rural population in a region of villas and small farmsteads. It is best known for the controversial discovery of a silver amulet bearing a chi-rho symbol, claimed as evidence of late Roman Christianity, though its authenticity has been seriously challenged.
Extensive excavations by Birmingham University Field Archaeology Unit in the 1990s at the Fosse Lane site revealed stone buildings, ironworking and other craft evidence, coins, and a substantial cemetery with both inhumations and cremations. The silver "Shepton Mallet amulet" recovered in 1990 generated considerable attention, but subsequent analysis has questioned whether the chi-rho element is original or a modern addition.
Shepton Mallet was a small roadside settlement (a "small town" or vicus) on the Fosse Way in Somerset, occupied from the mid-1st century AD through to the late 4th or early 5th century. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a settlement site from the Roman period in Britain.
Shepton Mallet 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 An area of the Romano-British linear village at Fosse Lane, Shepton Mallet (1.5 km), Green Ore (9 km), Roman building at Lamyatt Beacon, Creech Hill (9 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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