Roman Arm Purse

A Roman arm purse which can be seen in the British Museum in London today, found in about the second century CE by a cairn overlooking Farndale, which will transport you back 2,000 years

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The Roman Soldier who looked over the dale

One day in the second or third century CE, a Roman soldier dropped his arm purse, close to a prehistoric cairn, above and overlooking Farndale. It was later found in 1849 and is currently to be seen displayed in the British Museum. When the Roman legionary looked over Farndale it remained a wild, forested place.

Roman copper-alloy arm-purses were worn by soldiers. British examples include finds from Corbridge, South Shields, a site near Housesteads on Hadrian’s Wall, Colchester, and this one found at Farndale. Many have been found in Roman fortifications, sometimes with coins inside, although this one contained “nothing but a sort of ashes like decayed paper”. Roman copper-alloy arm-purses appear to have been principally, if not exclusively, a male, military accoutrement, with examples found both in auxiliary and legionary contexts in Britain and on the Continent.

As it was found above Farndale, it doesn’t evidence Roman activity within the dale, but it does suggest patrolling across high moorland tracks, overlooking the dale. There have been archaeological finds which date to the Roman period as close as Hutton le Hole/Lastingham and Fadmoor, suggesting remote small settlements immediately south of the dale. The nearby Roman military fortification at Cawthorn was probably built for practice rather than for operational military use and there were certainly military routes which passed over the moors.

The British Museum in London

At the time of writing, the purse can be seen in the British Museum (Museum Reference Number 1873,1219.175), on display in Room 49, case 9. This gallery is located on the upper floor of the museum. If it is no longer on display the museum might be prepared to show it to you if you quote the reference.

The British Museum were given the object from the Thunham Collection, which dates back to the nineteenth century, and the museum was not able to give me any further information about the find. It was bought from Mrs Frances Elizabeth Thunham. I have though found a 2007 record from York Museums, which appears to be describing the same object, which suggests that it might have once contained four denarii.

Go and see this purse in the British Museum and you’ll be in direct contact with the land of our ancestors, two millennia ago. It provides a port key to transport you back two thousand years to the heart of our ancestral lands.

The Farndale rim

You could also visit the rim of Farndale itself and imagine the place where this object was dropped. I suggest you go to the top of the steep eastern descent into Farndale near to the Lion Inn. There you will find the path which follows the old Rosedale railway line, which is now the Esk Valley Walk. It is easy to imagine the Roman soldier there, near to one of the many ancient cairns, looking over the valley and not noticing his bronze purse drop into the grass.

For a wider experience of the history of our family’s lands in the period of the Roman Empire, you might also stop at the field near Beadlam, the site of a nearby Roman villa; Hovingham, the site of a palatial villa; the regional capital of Isurium Brigantium at Aldborough; and Eboracum (York) where the Yorkshire Museum displays a rich collection of Roman artefacts.

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