Black Romans in Britain
The Archaeology of Black Britain: Approaches, Methods and Possible Solutions”
Case study: North African soldiers at Aballava (Burgh-by-Sands)
Richard Paul Benjamin, Postgraduate Researcher University of Liverpool
Alan M. Greaves, Lecturer University of Liverpool
There is an on-going debate regarding the presence or otherwise of black people in Britain in antiquity. The basic problem with this kind of research has always been the reliability and availability of source materials and the analytical methods by which we study them.
The most celebrated example of black Romans in Britain, is the case of the Roman military garrison at the fort of Burgh-by-Sands, on Hadrian’s wall in Cumbria. A fourth century inscription tells us that the Roman auxiliary unit Numerus Maurorum Aurelianorum was stationed at Aballava, modern-day Burgh-by-Sands. This unit had been mustered in the Roman province of Mauretania in North Africa, modern Morocco.
It is often forgotten that Rome’s African provinces were some of its most important and it has been suggested that there may have been a black Roman Emperor (Septimus Severus). There are in fact several inscriptions found in Britain that mention the Emperor Septimus Severus. It is generally accepted that Septimus Severus was born in Numidia, also in North Africa and there is the possibility that the unit Numerus Maurorum Aurelianorum was brought to Britain around AD 193-211 during his reign.
It was recently suggested that African DNA might be found to be present in the local populations near to Hadrian’s Wall, for instance, Burgh-by-Sands. However, this would not conclusively show that the black Roman soldiers on the wall intermarried with the local population because of the problem of admixture. Admixture is a process whereby the DNA of a population becomes diluted over time and it cannot be shown at what period in time that dilution took place.
Sir Walter Bodmer, a leading geneticist, believes that it would be exceedingly unlikely that any connection between North African soldiers stationed on the Wall could be detected among modern-day inhabitants of the area. It would be difficult to distinguish between the genetic traits of North African Roman soldiers and that of any later influxes of African DNA into the local gene pool.
Although the contribution of advances in the study of DNA to other areas of archaeological research has been enormous, this has not been the case here. Archaeologists are forced until there can be further excavations at the site to recover skeletons of the soldiers or advances in DNA technology as a result of the Human Genome Project, to continue relying on the older and more “scholarly” pursuit of epigraphy (the study of inscriptions) to answer these questions.
The Roman fort at Burgh-by-Sands (ancient Aballava) lay at the western end of Hadrian’s Wall in Cumbria. The site was occupied from around the second to fourth centuries AD. Our evidence for this unit consists of an inscription found in 1934 at the village of Beaumont two miles east of Burgh-by-Sands on the banks of the River Eden and a passage in the Notita Dignitatum, a Roman list of officials and dignitaries.
The Beaumont inscription, which is written in the stylised Latin of a standard Roman military inscription, was carved into an altar stone dedicated to the god Jupiter (king of the gods). It reads:
“To Jupiter Best and Greatest and the Majesty of our two emperors, to the genius (guardian spirit) of the numerous (unit) of Aurelian Moors, Valerianus’ and Gallienus’ own, Caelius Vibianus, cohort-tribune in charge of the above-mentioned numerous, [set up this altar] through the agency of Julius Rufinus, the senior centurion.” (See Fig.1)
As the name, Aurelianorum suggests the unit was named in honour of Emperor Marcus Aurelius (AD 161-180). Recently popularised in the film ‘Gladiator’. It is unlikely that the unit was formed just to be placed in one of the Empire’s farthest postings, and they had probably already seen active service before their posting to Burgh-by-Sands. More than likely the unit will have been blooded in battles in Germany (Germania) and the Danube (Dacia), where inscriptions mention a unit of Moors involved in these campaigns. The Roman Empire was constantly at war during the reign of Marcus Aurelius and therefore many units across the Empire will have been destroyed or weakened by battle.
Fig.1
Our second piece of evidence is the Notitia Dignitatum, a list of Roman dignitaries that includes the passage, ” prefect of the numerous of Aurelian Moors at Aballava.” Together, these two pieces of evidence firmly place a unit of Moors on Hadrian’s Wall, although the precise date of the occupation at the fort of Aballava is unknown. Their exact number is also unknown, although a small fort like Aballava could hold upwards of 500 men. We do not know where they were stationed before Aballava or where they went afterwards, but we do know that they were there.
It is not at all well-known that North African Roman soldiers were stationed on Hadrian’s Wall. Although it is tempting to think of the local inhabitants of Burgh-by-Sands as still having genetic traits of those black soldiers this cannot be confirmed. Sir Walter Bodmer does not categorically dismiss the possibility but he outlines the difficulties that are faced in trying to show this.
For us to securely link a unit of North African soldiers with the site at Burgh-by-Sands we must still rely on more traditional methods of scholarly investigation, in this case, epigraphy. The inscription and textual evidence available at present brings us to the conclusion that a unit of North Africans was stationed at Burgh-by-Sands but we cannot show that they intermarried whilst stationed there. For us to find African artefacts and the DNA of African soldiers themselves a full-scale archaeological excavation would have to be organised at the site. Only a methodical and modern archaeological excavation at the fort has the possibility of furthering our knowledge into a fascinating episode of the early black presence in British history.
Related Links
- African Roman Excavations in York
- Roman Wall Barrier or Bond: Dr Richard Benjamin on British Archaeology
- Septimus Severus
- Africans in Roman York
Bibliography
Breeze, D., & Dobson, B., 2000, Hadrian’s Wall, Penguin, London.
Frere, S., 1987, Tabula Imperii Romani-Britannia Septentrionalis, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Frere,S., 1995, The Roman Inscriptions of Britain II, Alan Sutton Publishing Ltd, Stroud.
Maxfield, V., 1981, The Military Decorations of the Roman Army, B.T.Batsford Ltd, London.
Snowden Jr., F., 1970, Blacks in Antiquity, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, USA.
Transactions of the Cumberland & Westmoreland Antiquarian & Archaeological Society,
Volumes: 1923, 1936, 1939, Titus Wilson & Son, Highgate.
Van Sertima, I., 1990, African Presence in Early Europe, Transaction Books, USA.
Septimius Severus was descended from Roman colonists, with possibly some Carthaginian (Phoenecian) admixture, so NOT native African.
Moors are of Berber stock. There was little tran Saharan travel or contact, so VERY FEW IF ANY black i.e. sub Saharan, Africans present
in the Classical world. This mostly came much later as a consequence
of Muslim trading, and slave taking, because of advances in ship
technology etc. It is falsifying history to claim that the above evidence shows that black soldiers were brought in large numbers to Britain by the Romans. Moors are not the same as blacks, and genetically the berbers are closely related to the Lapps of Norway.
Dan clearly you read that somewhere. The moors were Arabs and Black Africans. Was and still is a great mixing of cultures and people. The Crusaders themselves described “Moors” and “blackamoors” as some were black. You only need to take a look though Britain’s put names, “the saracens head, the moors head, the blacks head” .
What movie is the photo from?
Hi Paul, it’s from the movie Centurion.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1020558/
I’m afraid – for the interests of the above article – that Dan is absolutely correct. Mentioning evidence from the Middle Ages gets us nowhere, since that age postdates the Arab invasion of North Africa. The Mauri of ancient times were, in all, likelihood, similar to the Numidians of what is now northern Algeria and Tunisia.
In reference to Aballava, there is a great deal of tendentious hypothesis and presumption in the article. While it is likely that individual soldiers in Roman units on or near Hadrian’s Wall were black Africans, the numerus Maurorum was, almost certainly, not a black unit. They were recruited, I suppose, from the Atlas Mountain area, since the Lake District and southern Scotland would have been very similar terrain for them. Compare, e.g., the unit of Marsh Arabs (from southern Iraq) who were recruited to patrol the marshy estuary of the Tyne (numerus barcariorum Tigrisiensium).
Terry Walsh it would be of your best interest to do away modern assumptions of the past, which includes your interpretation that modern North Africans and Middle Easterners are exactly the same physically, culturally, linguistically, and genetically as their ancient counterparts.
The ranting guy and yourself are of the illusion that the Berbers, a population in North Africa, that is only united under language and similar culture, instead of race are the same, as well as the Arabs, a group that is also united under language and is more like a nationality than an ethnicity, whom originally occupied the Arabian peninsula and disperse from their homeland in the 7th century are exactly of the same appearance.
Let me start off by saying that both these two racially heterogeneous groups were not what you might of thought, which is either an olive skinned and stereotypical multi racial people, that is neither White nor Black, contrary to belief the indigenous inhabitants North Africa and the Middle East were not multiracial to the extent we see today, that not to say that there were no intermixing in these areas, but still, most of the people that inhabited these regions were nonetheless assume to be of a Black complexion. Also, I must add that the term Sub Saharan Africa did not exist.
Still your idea that parts of the area did not have contact with the Greco-Roman world would be comparable to that of the Steppes and the Orient, that they made contact but not to the extent that they did with Southern Europe, The Near East, and Northern Africa, including the Sahara and the heartland of Abyssinia.
As you can see, based on the various descriptions of the inhabitants of North Africa and the Middle East, it would be of reasonable assumption that these people were Black, but I digress. Now the Berbers as a group were always noted to being of a Black complexion with woolly hair, by the ancients.
In fact, it was simply an identifier of sorts. you had phases such as “Woolly hair as Moor” and “Black as a Moor”, the term Blackamoor or Blackamore is a shortened version of the previous phase. Now Moor itself, though the meaning had changed countless times, meant ‘Black”, then it evolved to into Black Muslim in the late Renaissance period to its modern definition, North African Muslim. Also, ‘Black” in the sense of the Greeks and Romans were not in the same used as in the English German, and other languages that were known to use Black in context. In the sense of the Greeks and Romans used they constantly used “Black” symbolically or as a descriptor to a group of people, this example can also be applied to the Persians, Syrians, and the colourism amongst the Arabs.
When “Black” used to describe the Berbers they simple didn’t differentiate the word when describing other African populations, that were obviously Black, such groups such as the Nubians, Abyssinians, Zanj, and other African populations. Modern North Africans are a product of a mixture of different peoples from Europe and Asia, with Africans. the demographic change in North Africa can no more be described as a Medieval phenomenon, than a prehistoric phenomenon though, there is some evidence for a back to Africa migration, occurring, but was mostly with the Near East and not only did ancient North Africans had some Asian admixture, but Eastern, Central, and even Some Western African populations did, but not the weight as their modern counterparts or to the sense they genetically clustered with Non-Africans.
Western Asian migration didn’t displace the previous inhabitants, but simply intermixed with them. despite this, however, base on the body-plan of ancient North Africans and Middle Easterners alike, they were mostly a tropical and arid-adapted people, which translate to being a heat adapted population, instead of a cold-adapted population like Europeans, Central Asians, and Eastern Asians. Which means they had were dark in complexion like Africans and Southern Asians, the two groups noted to being the darkest people in the world. therefore the various people that migrated back to Africa in prehistoric times were most likely as dark as the previous natives.
Also, I must point out the misconception about Africans themselves. Modern-day Africans carried with it a vast amount of genetic diversity than the entire world combined, 90% genetic diversity to be exact. Which means that those that you characterized as being Mediterranean, Hamitic, or Caucasoid, is just an expression of African diversity instead of a population having affinities to Whites.
The skull shape itself is all evident, because of the that many anthropologists characterized these skulls as dolichocephalic or elongated, a descriptor that was used to stereotype African populations in looking one way, thus the Hamitic race was born. Somalis, Ethiopians, the Tutsi, Nubians, along with some sahelian groups were grouped as Hamites along with the ancient Berbers and the ancient Egyptians, based on their remains, as well as their modern counterparts. The admixture among modern Arabs can also be characterized as being mostly a Medieval phenomenon, due to fact various people both Black and White became Arabized in culture.
The inhabitants of Arabia were also noted in medieval times as being Black skinned, to the extent that one Islamic scholar proclaimed that “The Arabs used to take pride in their Black and Brown complexion and had a distaste for a Red(White) complexion and would say this was a complexion of the Non-Arabs”.
This description plays well to the idea of the inhabitants of the Arabian peninsula intermixing with other groups of Syrian, Iranian, Caucasian, Turkish, Central Asian, and European origin. Not only this, but an Arab man of Zanj descent, commonly known as Al Jahiz wrote a book, that uplifted the Black peoples, such as the Zanj to start a rebellion against the mixed-race Abbasid dynasty. he literally called his book, “The Glory Of The Blacks Over The Whites” and he proclaimed that the Arabs were apart of the Black race.
He wrote this in the tenth century. So your idea that both the Middle East and North Africa were exactly like their ancient counterparts is not based on fact. These two regions had experienced mass migrations over the last 2000 years. intermixing and displacements were common during that time because the North African population was always small.
Transportation of renegades and slaves, as well as migrations of various other people seeking refuge an example of this is the Moorish Expulsion from the Iberian peninsula, where you had Iberian Muslims come settled in the Maghreb and the migration of the Syrians, Iranian groups, Scythian, and Turkomen interested in settling in the Crescent, the Levant, and Arabian peninsula as traders and merchants.
Perhaps Dna is very dilute, but when I lived near Abbeytown there was a local family that had tight curly hair. African hair only blond. Thinking of my own family, the Broughs originated in Brough by sands and some of them had very frizzy hair.
“Terry Walsh it would be of your best interest to do away modern assumptions of the past, which includes your interpretation that modern North Africans and Middle Easterners are exactly the same physically, culturally, linguistically, and genetically as their ancient counterparts.”
This misrepresents what I wrote – the rest of your piece has little or nothing to do with the point I was making. I make no ‘assumptions’ about the past.
I lived in the Countryside in Yorkshire England. My sister worked in the office of a Mansion of a large house. One day she took me to see a genuine Roman Bath just below ground level. This appeared to me as in almost Perfect condition, I was 15 yrs old then. There were many other traces of the Romans being there. I see a scene on Google Earth and it appears that it has been covered over by ignorant people of today The time when I saw this was 1949. I was thirteen years old then…this scene has never “left me” !!!
I am a direct Y-DNA descendant of these Numidian/Maure soldiers. However I have found that not only were “Moors/Berbers” in this troop, I have studied all of the Inscriptions found at forts near the Wall and MANY of them are Numidian/Maure. You can find the same tribune or Praefect on the inscription and also in the extensive Roman records of Roman Numidia and Mauretanian. The statement of the person above claiming Septimius Severus was not a true Numidian or Maure is absurd. He may have had a mix in him but his fathers and grandfathers were indigenous as the Numidians of Massinissa’s kingdom went as far East a Leptis Magna. Severus father line was native and in fact eastern Numidians (the Egyptians recognized the inhabitants of Libya as Numidians, in fact a Numidian/Amazigh tribe sat of the throne of Egypt as a late dynasty as did Nubians as a late dynasty). I love how people make statements without any real research. Egypt today mentions these tribes in places like Hawara. The Muslims took great pains to document the peoples just like in Roman, Egyptian,Arabian, Hebrew sources did.
The Numidians/Maure/Amazigh of modern times is off the main A branch from western Kenya and Ethiopia. E-M81/183 is a direct original African branch along with E-M2. Yes they were dark skinned and from the main earliest A- YDNA branch. So Severus and his sons/descendants and so many Roman Generals, Governors, Consuls, Tribunes,Praefects,etc I have found were in both Roman Frica and in Britain as well. Especially even at Hadrians Wall besides the Aurelian Moors. For example, Cornelius Peregrinus found on a ingraving at the old archaeological sites of the forts on Hadrians Wall was in fact a Numidian/Maure from the sea port of Saldae in Roman North Africa. I have researched and found so many of these situations at the Wall that it makes total sense that me and my cousins here in the States have this YDNA because our ancestor came here from the Borders (Hawick, Cavers) and we have found numerous Border clan YDNA collections with these clan names having both E-M35/81/183 and J- and other odd YDNA compared to the indigenous British Celt/Angle/Saxon YDNA. These Black Africans live on in our bodies whose YDNA. We carry to this day. I am writing a book and plan a huge movie. This data is indisputable and thanks to Roman documentation and other ancient groups, I have the receipts to prove it. These Black Africans were real and the mosaics of Severus show his dark pigment next to his paler Syrian wife Dommna and his lighter sons. So a lot of the above statements are not accurate and I thank you for writing this article. You are correct. Thank you !