The altar was first seen on Chapel Hill, just to the south of Housesteads on Hadrian’s Wall, Northumberland, in 1702. Many altars were found on this hillside, the temple area of Housesteads fort. For more than 1,000 years it lay on its side on Chapel Hill. Late in the 17th century someone spotted the strength of this large lump of sandstone, and used it to help create a fireplace in the farm house at the bottom of Chapel Hill! It was seen there in 1801. In 1822 the local landowner, George Gibson, gave the altar, and other Roman artefacts, to the Society.
The exact date of the altar is difficult to pinpoint, since no Roman Emperor is mentioned by name in the altar's inscription. However, it is likely that it was carved during the second century AD, or the first half of the third, after which time the practice of inscribing altars like this stopped.
The full inscription reads:
I[ovi] O[ptimo] M[aximo]
ET NVMINIBVS
AVG [VSTORUM] COH [ORS] I TV-
NGRORVM
MIL [LIARIA] CVI PRAEE-
ST Q [VINTUS] VERIVS
SVPERSTIS
PRAE [FEC] TVS
Which can be translated to:
To Jupiter, best and greatest,
and to the Divinities of the [Roman] Emperors.
The First Cohort of Tungrians,
one thousand strong, under the command of
Quintus Verius Superstis, prefect
The First Cohort of the Tungrians were auxiliaries, men who were not Roman citizens but had volunteered to serve with the Roman army. They had much the same training and fighting ability as the legionaries, who were Roman citizens, but auxiliaries came from specific areas of the Empire. The Tungrians was the name given to tribes living in the Belgic part of Gaul in Roman times – that is modern Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands.
For more details, see the downloadable documents below.