Vindolanda

Vindolanda was a Roman auxiliary fort just south of Hadrian's Wall in northern England, which it pre-dated [1]. Archaeological excavations of the site show it was under Roman occupation from roughly 85 AD to 370 AD [1]. Located near the modern village of Bardon Mill in Northumberland, it guarded the Stanegate, the Roman road from the River Tyne to the Solway Firth [1]. It is noted for the Vindolanda tablets, a set of wooden leaf-tablets that were, at the time of their discovery, the oldest surviving handwritten documents in Britain [1]. The first unit to be based at the site was the Cohors I Tungrorum, composed of Tungri from Gallia Belgica, led by Julius Verecundus, who seem to have arrived after Gnaeus Julius Agricola's conquest of the north and built the First Timber Fort [1]. The site consists of a series of fortresses built one on top of the other, which have been divided by archaeologists into nine periods [1]. Nearly 2000-year-old Roman boxing gloves were uncovered at Vindolanda in 2017 by the Vindolanda Trust experts led by Dr Andrew Birley [1].