Fragments of a “unique” cup or chalice – etched with what is believed to be the earliest Christian graffiti ever found in the UK – have been discovered in the remains of a 6th century church in northern England.
The 14 pieces, covered with lightly etched symbols including crosses, fish, ships and a whale as well as what are possibility human figures, Chi-Rho symbols and other images which are as yet unidentified, were discovered last year by an Australian volunteer working at the site of a Roman fort, known as Vindolanda, on Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland.
PICTURE: Courtesy of the Vindolanda Charitable Trust.
Post-Roman specialist Dr David Petts, of Durham University, has described the discovery as “a really exciting find from a poorly understood period in the history of Britain”.
Dr Petts, who is taking the lead on researching the vessel, told Sight via email that while there was always “going to be some issue about precisely how ‘graffiti’ is defined and the precise date of our object, I’m pretty happy that the images on the object are the earliest examples from Britain”.
“It’s a unique item – at this stage I’m interested in why the object might have been so decorated,” he said. “One possibility is that it’s something to do with divination – we need to do more work on the context of the object (how it was deposited; the nature of the building etc).”
Dr Petts said a key element of his team’s research will involve taking “really decent 3D images – including hi-res digital imagery”.
Lesley Walker, the Australian who found the fragments last year, told Sight it was her first time volunteering on a dig.
“I was just lucky it was in the area I was digging,” said Walker, a direct care worker in an aged care home who lives on Kangaroo Island in South Australia. “We actually scrape off layers of soil with a trowel so nothing gets missed…We were in the top layers of the ground as our dig period had started a new trench and, as I was working, a larger chunk of soil came away revealing the find.”
PICTURE: Malcolm Manners (licensed under CC BY 2.0)
Walker said she didn’t realise the significance of what she’d found immediately.
“I didn’t realise what I had uncovered at the time, but anything unusual we ask the archaeologist. As soon as [Vindolanda’s Director of Excavations and CEO Dr] Andrew Birley saw what I had found, he was very excited and realised it was something special. He could see markings on it and I could too once they were pointed out to me. He helped me uncover it completely, very carefully, and it was then taken away to be conserved.”
It was only after that, once the objects had been cleaned and photographed, that she heard it referred to as a chalice and became aware of the details of the engravings.
“I am not religious in any way so its significance to me is [the] information it can give on life in a time we know little about,” said Walker, who had hoped to return to volunteer at the dig this year but been unable to due to the coronavirus pandemic. “To have been part of that discovery is very special to me.”
Dr Birley said in published comments that the discovery will help researchers “appreciate how the site of Vindolanda and its community survived beyond the fall of Rome and yet remained connected to a spiritual successor in the form of Christianity which in many ways was just as wide reaching and transformative as what had come before it”.
“I am delighted that we can now start to share our news about this discovery and shed some light on an often-overlooked period of our heritage and past,” he said.
The chalice forms the centrepiece of a new exhibition held in the museum at the site.
