West Coker is a Romano-British villa in south Somerset, active principally in the third and fourth centuries AD, situated in the productive agricultural belt south of Ilchester (Lindinis). Like other villas in this district, it is likely to have been a modest-to-substantial rural estate centre exploiting the fertile lias soils of the Yeo valley, though its full plan and scale are not securely established.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
The site is most notable for producing RIB 187, a bronze ansate (handled) dedication plate to Mars Rigisamus ("Mars the most kingly"), one of only two known dedications to this Celtic epithet of Mars (the other from Bourges in Gaul), together with a fine bronze statuette of Mars — together suggesting a domestic shrine or lararium honouring a romanised native deity, and indicating the villa-owner's investment in Romano-Celtic religious culture.
The villa was identified in the nineteenth century, when the Mars statuette and inscribed plaque were recovered along with masonry, tesserae, and other domestic debris; no modern systematic excavation has been published, so the building's plan, phasing, and economic basis remain poorly understood.
West Coker is a Romano-British villa in south Somerset, active principally in the third and fourth centuries AD, situated in the productive agricultural belt south of Ilchester (Lindinis). It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a villa site from the Roman period in Britain.
West Coker is classified as a Roman villa — 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 East Coker (1.3 km), Roman villa N of Dunnock's Lane (1.8 km), Roman settlement remains immediately south of Westland Road (2.7 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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