Corbridge Lion

The Corbridge Lion, Northumberland, England, is an ancient Roman free-standing sandstone sculpture of a male lion standing on a prone animal (possibly a deer) on a semi-cylindrical coping stone base [1]. Measuring 0.95m in length by 0.36m in width and 0.87m high, it was originally a piece of decorative funerary ornamentation from a tomb [1]. It was subsequently re-used as a fountainhead by passing a water pipe through its mouth [1]. It was found in a water tank in 1907 in excavations led by Leonard Woolley on Site II (a corridor building with tesselated floors, hypocausts, and painted wallplaster that has been suggested as a mansio or posting station) on the Roman site at Corbridge [1]. It is believed to date to the 2nd or 3rd centuries AD [1]. The Corbridge Lion is now on display in the Corbridge Roman site museum run by English Heritage [1].