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Date: |
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Description: | inscription (roman), inscribed, D(IS)M(ANIBUS) REGINA LIBERTA
ET CONIUGE
BARATES PALMYRENUS NATIONE
CATUALLAUNA AN(NORUM) XXX
inscription (palmyrene), inscribed, RYGN' BY HRY BR 'T' HBL
Regina was once a slave, but ironically her name means 'Queen'. This tombstone is evidence for immigration and the mixing of cultures 1800 years ago. It was set up outside the Roman fort at South Shields in north-east England and records a British woman called Regina, who originally came from south-east England, and a man called Barates, who came from Palmyra in Syria. Regina was a slave, but Barates freed her and married her, and when she died aged 30, had this expensive tombstone made for her. It is Roman in style and has a Latin inscription, but also, uniquely in Britain, a second inscription in his own language, Aramaic, reading 'Regina, freedwoman of Barates, alas
Roman tombstone of Regina, a freed slave who married a man called Barates from Palmyra in Syria. It has a rare bilingual inscription with a line of Aramaic underneath the Latin. This was the language spoken in Syria. Regina sits in a wicker chair wearing a type of gown that was fashionable in Britain but not worn at Rome. She holds her spinning in one hand, and opens the lid of a strongbox beside her chair (late second century, Arbeia Roman Fort).
Material: stone | Source: | Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums | Identifier: | emu.ecatalogue.britisharchaeology.249830 | Go to resource |
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